If the former U.S. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, revived the Monroe Doctrine as a foreign policy instrument of his country, his substitute Mike Pompeo is trying to revendicate the corollary of the doctrine announced in 1904 by Theodore Roosevelt that: “The chronic wrongdoing (of some Latin American countries) may… require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the… Monroe Doctrine may force the United States… to the exercise of an international police power.”

Tradotto da  Supriyo Chatterjee

That particular President was considered the father of the most aggressive political imperialism in the history of the United States. His foreign policy, termed the “big stick”, was based on the idea that “when visiting the adversary, speak softly but carry a big stick in hand”.

Donald Trump, it seems, wants to imitate Roosevelt, but without speaking softly. He spreads his stupidity the world over with his strident grandiloquence, without even being capable of succeeding in the fight against the coronavirus despite leading the most powerful nation on the planet. He already has an aircraft carrier stalled in Guam because 150 of the 4,000 marines are infected with coronavirus. Trump is not even capable of protecting his armed and security forces.

The United States cannot understand how to dictate norms for the functioning of the planet when the only law it knows how to wield is force and the only way of covering up its ineptitude is attacking others. Its viciousness towards Venezuela in the past few days, trying to intimidate the government, the armed forces and the people, is a clear expression of the hate that erases any trace of the human condition.

After talking with the Russian President Vladimir Putin and coming to know that its government had fully absorbed Russia’s energy links with Venezuela, and that of the firm posture of unrestricted Chinese support to the constitutional government of the country, the U.S. Administration, it seems, decided, like every time it has been obliged by facts, to take another way – to recognise Maduro as President and call on him to withdraw. Nobody ceases to be President if not already one.

Leading from this and a succession of exasperating events, the State Department in the first instance made its Caracas employee propose the creation of an “equally balanced Council of State” which no one knows what it means and something that does not exist in the Constitution.

In his message, Guaido claimed that nobody knew Maduro. Is it that he does not know that Maduro is the President of a country that has relations with 150 other nations in the world, that it has just handed over the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement and has moreover been elected a member of the Human Rights Commission? The explanation for this mental disorder follows a little later.

In continuing this new and melodramatic show, Elliot Abrams, a self-confessed and convicted criminal at the service of the U.S. Government, had to resort to publishing an article in the Wall Street Journal (given Guaido’s incapacity to explain what they wanted to say) to lie and falsify information without the least bit of shame and typical of his villainous character type.

In a baffling proposal, in which he launched as a trial balloon the idea of defeating President Maduro, booting out his pupil in exchange and reiterating the unconstitutional path of a “Council of State”, he put forward a phrase worthy of being set in marble: “Democracy is not just a question of elections”, a wise idea that dismantles the lie that has been repeated for almost 250 years. All that he needed to say, moreover, was that democracy isn’t a government of the majority, as is claimed, that separation of powers don’t exist and that alternation is a fallacy in which different representatives of capital calibrate power in favour of one faction or the other rather than people having the right to participate in such alterability because they don’t have the millions of dollars needed to compete.

Finally, assuming that Venezuela functions on the basis of self-appointments, Abrams named himself as the only constituent member to invent an inexistent constitution that would fashion Venezuela according to U.S. interests for grabbing its resources and finishing off its example. He even wishes us to thank him for allowing us to participate in that future of “milk and honey” offered to us. As if the Venezuelans were ignorant and did not know what had happened in Honduras, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia, countries in which the United States recently changed governments by force, violating the human rights of millions of citizens. Thanks Abrams, we have many problems, but what you offer us is not just indignant but also worse and forces us into the condition of becoming Washington’s slaves.

This imperial functionary is so brazen that he affirms: “U.S. pressure hasn’t prevented food or medicine from reaching Venezuelans”. That, above all, is what this weird gringo thinks, that we are imbeciles.

Finally, needing to get rid of the thorn in the flesh, he calls for a betrayal from the armed forces, repeating what they have been doing since 18 years when they had momentary success in executing a coup by criminal soldiers whom no one even remembers anymore.

This is so clear in the above-mentioned article in which Abrams says: ”The armed forces’ support of the Democratic Transition Framework would be a key step in this direction.” (This is what the plan is called, arguably as a homage to Marco Rubio.) It can thus be concluded that as they lack this “key step”, they don’t have “direction”.

He ends with the threat typical of his ilk, thinking that the Venezuelan government like that of Colombia, Honduras, Santa Lucia, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Guyana or, Chile, can be blackmailed and/or threatened. The dignified people of Venezuela, the majority, would reject it. In language typical of criminal gangs, Abrams reaffirms that till the U.S. objectives are met “our pressure will strengthen”.

The Venezuelan government response rejecting this affront was firm and forceful. The government, the people and the armed forces would be disgraced if they allowed themselves to be blackmailed by this criminal disguised as a diplomat.

It would seem that neither did this article achieve its objective. The same afternoon, Pompeo had to show up to state the terms of the threat. Facing reports claiming that the United States had pushed Guaido aside, Pompeo was forced to say – seemingly after consulting the Venezuelans of Miami – that the self-appointed was “the most popular politician of Venezuela at this point”, for which he could offer himself as a candidate.

Pompeo reiterated that in the free elections that would be organised (presumably similar to that of Bolivia), PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) could compete on equal terms, also presumably like the same equal terms of Bolivia, where the leaders of MAS (Movement towards Socialism) face persecution, disqualification and selective repression after the coup organised by the Organisation of American States (OAS). In the U.S. dictionary, “free elections” are those that are organised to legalise their illegitimate candidates.

After this declaration by the U.S. Secretary of State, Guaido thanked him and said these were the “right steps”, adding that Maduro should accept the “offer that the international community has made to him”. Displaying his characteristic foolishness, he denominated the United States as “the international community”, that is to say, the others don’t exist: the UN, the European Union, the 11 U.S. Senators who have called on suspending the sanctions, the 150 countries that recognise Maduro as the constitutional President of Venezuela, and those that recognise him but act silly for fear of the United States, all of them invisible. This is the reason for which Guaido affirms that nobody knows of Maduro. It is needless to say more.

This new escalation seeks to block the advances in the process of dialogue between the government and the majority of the opposition, because they know there is no unity around the figure of Guaido; on the contrary, he is a moribund political actor and not exactly for coronavirus, is insignificant, is of no help in blackmailing neither the government nor even the opposition that is talking and looking for a democratic and constitutional way out, which in the electoral field leads to parliamentary elections this year in December.

This “Marco (Brand) Rubio of Democratic Transition” is an expression of the incapacity of the United States to construct its “own solution” for Venezuela, for which it seeks to insist on a message focussed on dividing the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), banking moreover on violence, terrorism and assassination.

The recent realisation of a meeting of the Council of State, a “superior consultative organ of the government and the national public administration” as established by Article 251 of the national Constitution, with the participation of all the organs of the State, is the clearest expression of the popular will of the Venezuelans to coordiante peaceful efforts for the solution of our problems, without outside interference and in the framework of that which is established in the Carta Magna, the maximum expression of democray without tutelage which the Venezuelan people are constructing.