Trump Regime Hardliners Want Venezuela Becoming Another Honduras
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
Under US installed fascist rule, Honduras is Latin America’s death squad capital. Anthropologist Adrienne Pine calls horrific abuses in the country “invisible genocide.”
Other than active war theaters, Honduras is “the most violent country on the planet,” she earlier said, its murder rate exceeding other nations.
Last year, she explained what she called the Honduran model of “militarized capitalism…neoliberal fascism,” and its devastating implications for human and civil rights, health, and human dignity – in Honduras and similar repressive societies, increasingly in the US.
In June 2009, Obama and Hillary Clinton colluded with Honduran fascists to topple democratically elected populist President Manuel Zelaya. Junta rule replaced him. State terror became official policy.
A state of siege exists. Human and civil rights violations are horrific. Killings, beatings, disappearances, and intimidation are commonplace.
Human rights workers, trade unionists, journalists, environmental activists, and other regime opponents are targeted for elimination.
For decades, Honduran officers have been trained at the infamous School of the Americas (SOA) – now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISEC).
Instruction focuses on killing, torture, oppression, eliminating poor and indigenous people, overthrowing democratically elected governments, assassinating targeted leaders, suppressing popular resistance, and solidifying hard-right rule cooperatively with Washington.
Thousands continue fleeing Honduras because of extreme poverty, severe repression, and state-sponsored violence following the decade-ago US orchestrated coup.
According to historian Dana Frank, “a series of (post-coup) corrupt (regimes) unleashed open criminal control of Honduras, from top to bottom of the government.”
Ruling authorities operate in cahoots with organized crime, drug traffickers, and the US. Violent gangs terrorize urban neighborhoods.
Post-coup regimes in cahoots with internal and foreign monied interests made life unbearable by eliminating social safety net protections, greatly increasing socioeconomic inequality.
Emigration from the country is all about fleeing from intolerable conditions, what Republicans and undemocratic Dems want instituted in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and all other sovereign independent states.
Pentagon commanders reportedly are drafting military plans to counter Russian, Cuban, and Chinese influence in Venezuela.
While military intervention in the country is unlikely, Trump regime hardliners continue to say “all options are on the table” – what’s said time and again ahead of hostile actions against nations.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez accused Brazilian and Colombian authorities of plotting “a criminal plan…to militarily attack Venezuela.”
On Jovem Pan Radio, fascist Brazilian President Bolsonaro said he’s working with the Trump regime to sow discord in the ranks of Venezuela’s military.
“We cannot allow Venezuela to become a new Cuba or North Korea,” he roared. Retired army general/vice president Hamilton Mourao called for resolving things in Venezuela diplomatically.
He and other Brazilian officials oppose military intervention, the same position true throughout the region. Venezuelans overwhelming want US hands kept off their country. They’re especially against foreign military intervention.
Separately, the Trump regime imposed new sanctions on Venezuela, targeting its central bank, aiming to cut off access to US dollars, other sanctions imposed on Cuba.
According to neocon hardliner John Bolton, it’s a warning to Russia, China, Cuba, and other countries against cooperating with Maduro.
On Wednesday, he said “(t)oday, we proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well. (Latin America) must remain free from internal despotism and external domination (sic).”
It’s what US aims for controlling Venezuela (and all other countries) are all about, wanting another imperial trophy, the Bolivarian Republic transformed to resemble Honduras and other despotic states.
According to Bolton, the Trump regime will consider action by Russia and other nations to aid Venezuela “a threat to international peace and security in the region.”
In response to US sanctions on Venezuela’s central bank, Maduro said “(t)o me the empire looks crazy, desperate.”
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said “(n)o one will rip the fatherland away from us, neither by seduction nor by force. We Cubans do not surrender.”
In response to US sanctions war on Venezuela and Cuba, Russia vowed to continue helping both countries, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov saying:
“We are concerned over the continuing actions by the United States toward the countries of the Latin American region. We see the sanctions as absolutely unlawful and illegitimate.”
“We will oppose them. Venezuela and Cuba are our allies and strategic partners in the region. We will do everything we can to let them feel our support.”
Russian support is key to preserving and protecting their sovereign independence from US aims to transform them into vassal states.
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