The NYT Pays Homage to Fascist Venezuelan Coup Plotter
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
In 2015, Leopoldo Lopez was arrested, prosecuted and convicted, and imprisoned for inciting months of violence and related crimes against the state – a US-regime change plot still ongoing to replace Bolivarian social democracy with fascist tyranny.
He and others were responsible for scores of deaths and injuries, along with destruction of private property.
Life imprisonment in America would likely follow conviction of similar crimes. Lopez was sentenced to 14 years. After three years in prison, he was transferred to house arrest for humanitarian reasons in July 2017.
President Maduro called him the “face of fascism” in Venezuela. Along with co-conspirators, he launched a US-supported La Salida (the Exit) campaign.
It openly called for ousting Venezuela’s government, inciting street violence to return the country to its bad old pre-Chavez days.
Media scoundrels covered months of US-orchestrated street violence “as if it were Selma 1965,” History Professor Greg Grandin observed, calling Lopez “the darling of Venezuela’s (fascist) opposition.”
He was involved in the aborted two-day 2002 coup attempt to oust Chavez. Grandin called him a “thug…Ted Cruz with a mob.”
While incarcerated, the NYT and other media scoundrels called him a “political prisoner,” ignoring his high crimes, his coup plotting and responsibility for street violence causing many deaths and injuries.
On March 1, the Times headlined “Can Venezuela Be Saved?” – lauding a convicted criminal now under house arrest, disgracefully comparing his imprisonment to MLK in Birmingham jail.
Lopez is a fascist thug, King a nonviolent, anti-war civil rights leader until his 1968 state-sponsored assassination.
The Times: “Lopez was arrested in February 2014 after leading a public protest that turned violent.”
Fact: He was imprisoned for inciting violence, coup plotting and related crimes.
The Times: “(H)e’s among the most prominent and popular opposition leaders in Venezuela.”
Fact: His supporters included wealthy Venezuelans and right-wing extremists, not majority Chavistas.
The Times: “His case has been championed by just about every human rights organization on earth” – reactionary ones alone supporting privilege at the expense of social justice.
Lopez has a long history of wrongdoing, including municipal corruption and inciting anti-Bolivarian violence.
According to US embassy in Caracas cables released by WikiLeaks, he’s described as “arrogant, vengeful and thirsty for power…a divisive figure of the opposition.”
Allied with fascist hardliner Maria Corina Machado, their La Salida (exit) campaign called for Maduro’s removal from office, saying “the method is secondary.”
They called for “guarimbas,” anti-government street violence. Asked at the time when it would end, he said “when we manage to remove those who govern us.”
Lopez and others like him are no democrats. They’re coup plotting fascist thugs, violence and other dirty tactics used to end Bolivarian governance.
The Times disgracefully portrayed him as a national hero – suppressing his dark side, supporting privilege exclusively, hostile to equity, justice and rule of law principles.
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