Source: Collective 'Peace with Venezuela', in collaboration with Handsoffvenezula-NL, on handsonvenezuela.nl July 20, 2020 ~~~
The U.S. is increasing its military presence around Venezuela. The fanatical regime change gang, led by convicted war criminal Elliot Abrahms, does not shy away from all means to achieve its goal. This gang has Stef Blok, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, in their pocket. Since his appointment on 7 March 2018, he has been actively involved in all aggression against Venezuela, criminal or otherwise, just as he loyally supported the sabotage and coup d’état in Bolivia. The people’s representation in the Dutch Parliament is weak, divided and possibly onesided involved, and allows everything to happen without any criticism or control. There were a few questions from the Socialist Party (SP), which Minister Blok left unanswered in an extremely frustrating way.
The former colonial ABC islands, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, where the Dutch government still determines foreign and military policy, and where there is state interference in increasingly more areas, are involved in the war preparations against the former Spanish colony Venezuela, which has liberated itself and determines its own independent policy.
The financial and economic coercive measures (the so-called sanctions), intended to sabotage Venezuelan government policy and strangle the people, have also drastically worsened the situation for many ABC islanders: The Isla oil refinery, which provided income for more than 900 workers, has been closed down by terminating its contract with the Venezuelan state-owned company PDVSA; any trade with neighbouring Venezuela has been banned because of the trade embargo – including fruit, vegetables and fish; and visits from Venezuela have been hindered by newly introduced visa requirements.
There has been hardly any compensation for this decline caused by neo-colonial policies; the guilty politicians claim that the corona pandemic, and not their policies, caused the problems. This may apply to operators and workers in the tourist industry, but they were did not participate in the recent protests on 3 July.
The Aggression is becoming more threatening.
The ‘sanctions’ have a boomerang effect: after years of financial economic sabotage and a number of violent interventions, the motivation for the right to sovereignty and self-determination is increasing worldwide. More than 500 sanctions against 39 countries forced the beleaguered and besieged countries to find inventive solutions, including the development of food sovereignty, alternative trade and a monetary system, which is a direct threat to the lucrative status quo of Western powers.
For example, tanker and food flottillas from Iran have recently broken the strangling trade embargo, and Cuba, China, Russia and very recently Turkey are providing Venezuela the necessary means to survive the sanctions and fight the pandemic at home.
As a reaction, the language of the regime change gang becomes more aggressive, we see all the subservient international institutions media and NGOs scaling up their unsubstantiated accusations, and the threat of war from the US and NATO increases, with the deployment of more military means around Venezuela. There is a real risk of a naval blockade, provocations, false flag incidents and open military confrontation with Venezuela, in which the Netherlands (the Caribbean ABC islands) and NATO (including Colombia as the youngest partner state) will be involved.
Military aircrafts and an air brigade on Curaçao; patrolling warships in territorial waters; 800 special forces in Colombia.
Supposedly to detect and fight hard drug shipments, the US-Airforce deploys sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft flight from the runway in Curacao, over the South Caribbean Sea back and forth along the Venezuelan coast, detecting everything that stands and moves, transmitted and communicated wirelessly, in the air, at sea and 200 km inland. Digital sabotage and the disruption of communications, radar, warning and defence systems are also prepared with the intercepted signals.
The US Navy war fleet patrols the Venezuelan contiguous maritime zone up to 12 nautical miles off the Venezuelan coast with guided-missile destroyers, which, with the strategic data of the two reconnaissance aircraft and their seven long-range guns and hundreds of missiles and torpedoes, could destroy a lot, and thus pose an immanent threat.
Also allegedly to combat drug trafficking, paramilitaries are trained by mercenaries in three Colombian training camps, and in five military bases the Colombian army is trained by eight hundred US special forces (SFAB). Colombia is home to ten US military bases and has been a NATO partner since May 2017. Israeli military trainers are also present in this neighbouring country of Venezuela.
All in all, it is a comprehensive threat, aggression and interference in the sovereignty of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The official motivation, fighting drug transports, lacks any credibility; these planes, ships, paratroopers and army units are there exclusively for a violent ‘regime-change’, as in the wars against Iraq, Libya, Syria. The use of these military means is reminiscent of the invasion and takeover of Panama in 1989, and therefore serves no other purpose, this time aimed at Venezuela.
Boeing E-3 sentry, AWACS
US airforce on FOL-base, Curacao
USS Nitze guided missile destroyer
800 Special Forces arrive in ColombiaWhat happened to make it come so far?
At the end of 2014, overproduction by the US and the Saudies forced the oil price down. For Venezuela (Russia, Brazil, Iran,…) this has led to a significant reduction in state revenues.
From 2017 onward, financial and economic coercive measures have been imposed by the US and the EU in decrees and articles of law, which are fanatically enforced internationally by all government departments, state actors, partners and allies, in order to sabotage the Venezuelan government’s policy, destroy Venezuela’s economy, and make life as difficult as possible for its inhabitants.
On May 20, 2018, Maduro won the presidential elections, but as we are used to in the backyard of the USA, those elections were boycotted by parties that cannot win. Subsequently, the VS and these parties declared the elections invalid and created violence, supported by Western governments, newspapers, NGOs and the discredited London company SmartMatic, which once supplied the voting machines. It’s from the USA’s roadmap for regime change
On August 4, 2018, two bomb-charged drones nearly assassinated President Maduro during a speech in front of a large crowd in Caracas. John Bolton (US), President Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia) and Julio Borges (Venetian opposition) appeared to be behind the assassination attempt. The control of the two drones was disrupted, causing the attack to fail.
There were three attempted coup d’état as of 2019, and following the recognition by 50 countries of the self-declaration of coup leader Juan Guaido as interim President in January 2019 (a de facto diplomatic crime), Venezuelan assets and property in those same countries were blocked and confiscated because there alledged was no longer a recognised government.
Some recent actions by the regime change gang, have accelerated the escalation:
On 26 March, U.S. Attorney General William Barr charges five Venezuelan leaders with drug crimes, including President Maduro, demanded their extradition and put $10 to $15 million dollar bounties on their heads. A striking replay of the Panama-1989 invasion preparations, for which the same William Barr also fabricated the legal justification at the time.
(Also in supplying the Contras against Nicaragua, William Bar played a direct role as chief advisor to the CIA airline Southern Air Transport. Later, this William Bar would ensure that the previously convicted Elliot Abrahms escaped prosecution. This is how the gang members help each other.)
On April 1, Trump announces that U.S. Navy ships will patrol the Caribbean Sea. Due to protests by naval personnel in connection with vulnerability to coronavirus infection, Southcom apparently postponed this for a month, but after an extra ‘corona-meeting’ with the NATO summit, four large warships from Western European NATO countries leave for the region threatened with siege: from France (3 April) from England (4 April) and two from the Netherlands (3 and 13 April respectively).
On 3 and 4 May, at least 90 mercenaries carry out a sea and land invasion. According to the contract with the paramilitary contractor Silvercorp, signed by Juan Guaido, among others, who promised them a payment of USD 212 million (stolen from the Venezuelan state), they would create chaos, murder or imprison government leaders, dismantle all institutions including the army, police and popular militias, create a new state organisation including army and security services, dissolve collectives and destroy any opposition.
The action was prepared in the Spanish embassy in Caracas, where Leopoldo Lopez jr. has been staying since he fled his house arrest, and was facilitated and pre-financed by top drug criminal Elkin López, alias ‘Doble Rueda’ of the Los Pachencas cartel in Colombia. Shortly before this violent invasion attempt from Colombia, with a stopover on Aruba, Minister Blok happened to be present on the ABC islands. It is unclear whether he was aware of the invasion, and whether he had a position in it.
From 24 May to 1 June, an Iranian tanker flottilla arrives, breaking through the naval blockade with the supply of petrol and means of production. The Dutch warships HNLMS Zeeland and HNLMS Karel Doorman are conspicuously present. The latter switches of his location signalling with no stated reason, which was particularly threatening. Shortly afterwards, the commando of the Karel Doorman announces that the ship and crew will return to the Netherlands early, and HNLMS Groningen in den Helder prepares for departure to the besieged region.
As of June 10, when the highest judge of Venezuela dismisses a sabotaging leadership of the electoral council and two hard-right opposition parties and replaces their reliable predecessors, opponents of the Bolivarian Republic declare the parliamentary election, planned for the end of this year null and void in advance. The US, EU, OAS, LIMA and the G4 are deliberately working on an escalation. By creating chaos around the elections an attempt will be made again to plunge the country into civil war. This well-known roadmap has been implemented many times by the US. Subservient NGOs such as WOLA, Amnesty International, Human Right Watch and Foro Penal will play a major role in this, because their one-sided, unaccountable and sometimes imaginative reports are accepted as normative by international institutions.
On 13 June, Alex Saab was arrested by Interpol during a stopover on the islands of the Cape Verde archipelago. As a Venezuelan diplomat, he is in charge of supplying CLAP, the Venezuelan social food program that provides over 60% of all households with basic food. His last mission concerned negotiations for Iranian food supplies and supermarkets, which recently took shape on 20 June with a first food Flotilla.
On 19 June, Southcom’s selectively distributed press release appeared in Caribbean newspapers, announcing the deployment on Curaçao of 4 military aircraft and personnel: An AWACS, a JSTAR, two stratotankers and 200 military personnel. Despite the fact that the press release, in addition to this announcement, only contains orwellian doublespeak, i.e. deception and factual lies, it has not moved these select Caribbean ‘news sources’ to at least comment it.
In this press statement is stated that it will be about “disrupting and defeating transnational criminals and organizations trafficking illicit drugs in the region”. However, since 26 March, when Attorney General William Barr accuses five Venezuelan leaders of drug crimes, it must be borne in mind that this is in fact the ‘disrupting and defeating’ by force of the Venezuelan government. The imprisonment of Venezuelan heads of government and the taking over or redeployment of the Venezuelan state appears to be the real intention, as was made clear in the revelation of the contract with Silvercorp’s mercenary contractor.
On June 23, four days after the publication of the Southcom press release in Caribbean newspapers, Minister Blok informed the parliament by letter, “also on behalf of his colleague of defense”, of an approval that he and three other members of the government apparently signed for the use of the USAirForce FOL-base on Curaçao for this new military action. Blok’s letter suggests that this is a ‘cooperation in the fight against drugs from the air’, and that therefore ‘in accordance with the treaty with the Netherlands, the US does not have to ask permission beforehand for these or other expansions’. The text of his letter is multi-interpret-able; we will analyze it later on in part-2.
However, in the western region, where 93% of all cocaine is transported from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, such reconnaissance flights have never been carried out. Moreover, the deployment of the two stratotankers will not be in support of the two reconnaissance aircraft, as they have enough fuel on board to fly back and forth along the Venezuelan coast from the Curaçao base. On the other hand, these stratotankers are an absolutely necessary facility for any additional deployment of fighter aircraft and bombers from the US, Porto Rico or Costa Rica.
Commands in the JSTAR
JSTAR command room
Stratotanker fills three F16s
Stratotanker fills four F35A bombersReconnaissance aircraft that continuously monitor the Venezuelan airspace, the territorial sea area and the densely populated coastal strip, and might intercept, disrupt or hack all wireless communication and control, as well as stratotankers that can fuel an air strike, can certainly be considered as pre-war actions and an immanent threat. The parliament is seriously deceived here; the relationship with the fight against drugs is anything but credible, which means that the use of the USAF FOL bases on Curaçao falls outside the aforementioned ‘treaty with the Netherlands’, and that ‘prior permission’ should have been requested. Because it can be interpreted as (the start of) acts of war, Parliament should also have given its prior consent.
The criminal regime change gang wants the surrender of Venezuela; a law-abiding government; repressive anti-chavismo cleansing; the theft of oil, gold and other minerals; and the implementation of a neo-liberal policy. A coup d’état or surrender after a fierce war, which they advocate, will be many times more violent than that of, for example, Chile in 1973, because it will deal murderously repressive with 20 years of social chavismo policy, which is anchored in a large majority of the population. The people’s representation in the Chamber has something to explain, if it agrees with support from the ABC islands, or pretends not to be able to influence it.
Note: This series of articles is an update and further elaboration of an earlier article posted on 1 July. In Part 2, we will highlight the lies and deception that had to persuade the people of the Netherlands and Europe, and their representatives in Parliaments, to agree to this maximum aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.