May 17, 2014 - No. 19

Behind Unfolding Events in Nigeria

White House Escalates
Interventionist Plans

Behind Unfolding Events in Nigeria

White House Escalates Interventionist Plans

- Abayomi Azikiwe, Pan-African News Wire, May 13, 2014 -

Click to enlarge.

A video purportedly released by the armed Boko Haram sect based in northeastern Nigeria showed what was said to be school girls who have been held by the group for a month. The Boko Haram leader said that the young women could be released in exchange for the prisoners belonging to their organization being held by the Nigerian government.

With the convening of the World Economic Forum for Africa in Abuja, the political capital of Nigeria, during the week of May 5, international media attention was focused on the country. The issue of internal security in Nigeria was also paramount since the detonation of two deadly bombs in Abuja during a three week period which resulted in the deaths of over 80 people.

Simultaneously the story involving the missing high school students from the village of Chibok in Borno state in the northeast which has been under a government-imposed state of emergency for months, was utilized to mobilize the intervention of military and intelligence personnel from Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv. The problems of the Boko Haram insurgency has existed since 2009 when the government deployed police and soldiers to attack the headquarters and residences of the group which had functioned for several years with the public support of some prominent northern-based politicians.

The plight of the missing students is part and parcel of the overall security crisis inside the northeast region of the country and which is spreading to Abuja and other areas. Thousands have been killed in the fighting over the past five years and many more have been displaced.

Despite Nigeria's designation by the western-based financial publications as having the largest economy in Africa, there is still tremendous poverty and unemployment inside the West Africa state, the continent's most populous. This wealth generated in the recent period has obviously not trickled down to the working class, youth and poor since the country over the last two years has been the scene of strikes in the oil, medical, educational and public service sectors of the national economy.

The deliberations surrounding the WEF represented the same type of investment-driven approach to economic development in Africa. At the opening reception during the gathering, President Goodluck Jonathan welcomed the intervention of the imperialist states in resolving the return of the students and stated that "terrorism" would not interfere with the current political trajectory of the government.

The Role of Imperialism and the Legacy of Colonialism

The Boko Haram group is a manifestation of the regional conflicts in Nigeria that were inherited from the British colonial system and the continuing political dominance by the United States in the foreign and internal affairs of the oil-rich state. This year represented the centennial of the consolidation of colonial rule by Britain.

A system of indirect rule for decades left the country divided at the time of national independence in 1960. Two military coups in 1966 lead to a civil war during 1967-70, when a section of the national bourgeoisie in the southeast attempted to form its separate nation of Biafra.

Since the 1970s, a succession of both military and civilian governments have been largely dominated by military interests most of whom originate in the north of the country. The oil wealth is largely found in the southeast and increasingly offshore in the Gulf of Guinea.

Adding to this regional problem that has not been resolved since 1960, the Muslim population of Nigeria is heavily based in the northern region. Due to the policy of the British colonialists, many people from the northern region were recruited into the military and were utilized to suppress resistance to imperialism throughout the country.

Based upon these regional differences which permeate the political parties and governing structures of the country, a cohesive administrative strategy remains elusive. The country is the largest exporter of crude oil from Africa into the U.S. Since 1956, the petroleum industry has been dominated by Britain, Europe and the U.S.

A recent editorial published by the Guardian, a leading national newspaper in Nigeria, stated in response to a memo written by Adamawa State Governor Murtala H.Y. Nyako, that "The indubitable truth is that insecurity in the land is transforming into a hydra-headed monster. That the President does not appear to grasp gravity of the problem his administration, and the country face is daily advertised by his sometimes frivolous words and deeds." (May 7)

The editorial goes on saying "Many Nigerians now find no reason to believe that this government has their 'security and welfare' as its 'primary job. Nyako may have used a wrong medium and foul language, [nonetheless,] his frustrations resonate with most Nigerians. President Jonathan should do all within his enormous presidential powers to prevent a groundswell of popular anger against his government."

Jonathan, who comes from the Ijaw ethnic group based in the south, is facing re-election in 2015 amid the worsening security crisis inside the country since the 1960s. During the 1990s, an insurgent group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) came into existence demanding adequate compensation for the southern region where oil is exploited.

MEND, which has condemned the abductions of the high school students, engaged in sabotage operations against the oil industry and presented an effective public relations campaign that accompanied its actions. Their efforts were coupled with mass demonstrations by women and youth also demanding that the large western-based oil firms such as Shell-BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil clean up the environmental damage in the southern region and invest profits into the structural development of the Niger Delta.

MEND was later offered an amnesty which included monetary compensation, scholarships and other amenities. The armed actions in the southern region have declined significantly but security still remains a serious concern.

However, the Boko Haram campaigns have targeted civilians and Christian churches. They also claimed responsibility for the bombing of the United Nations offices in Abuja during 2011.

"Terrorism" and Imperialism in Africa

There have been many questions raised about the origins and support for Boko Haram. Some informed Nigerians claim that the group still maintains support among sections of the northern political and economic elites.

The tactics of the group has shifted since 2009 as well. They have suggested an alliance with Al-Qaeda and the character of the violence carried out inside the country in the northeast and other areas are strikingly similar to the bombing operations in other countries such as Iraq.

Interestingly enough the U.S. administration under President Barack Obama had refused to label Boko Haram a terrorist group even after the UN bombing. Hillary Clinton, who was Secretary of State at the time under Obama, has been seen making statements of concern about the missing children, however, during her tenure with the administration she would not categorize Boko Haram as a terrorist organization.

These actions by Boko Haram and the failure of the Jonathan administration in Abuja to effectively respond has provided the imperialist states, led by the U.S., an opportunity to deepen their involvement inside the country. Just recently joint naval operations in the Gulf of Guinea between the Pentagon and several West African states, including Nigeria, were conducted as part of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and European Union Forces (EUFOR) interventionist project.

In another article published in the Nigerian Guardian by Laolu Akande, it states that "Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, is leading 20 female U.S. Senators to demand for U.S. military assistance. In an interview with CNN last week, she specifically asked for Special Forces Operations. At a global press conference also in Washington D.C. about the same time, the Christian Association of Nigerian-Americans, (CANAN) leaders also made the request that Special Forces be deployed to Nigeria to rescue the Chibok girls." (May 11)

This same article goes on to report that "According to Collins, 'I would like to see Special Forces deployed to rescue these young girls'. And later at an international press conference in Washington DC, the President of CANAN, Dr. James Fadele, on behalf of the association asked the U.S. president to consider 'sending Special Forces units as already suggested by a sitting U.S. Senator Susan Collins. CANAN added that the 'U.S. should use every available tool within its arsenal to trace, track and terminate' Boko Haram operations."

These statements by leading members of the U.S. Senate and spokespersons who claim to represent the sentiment of the Nigerian expatriate community must be viewed in conjunction with the role of the corporate and government-controlled media based in the West. An upsurge in demonstrations of outrage and shock is portrayed as a means of justifying imperialist military intervention in Nigeria.

Yet with the recent history of these interventions led by the U.S., France and other NATO states along with Israel, they have not brought about peace and security in Mali, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Libya and other affected regions. The problems of internal security within Nigeria must be viewed within the context of the inherited capitalist relations of production, the burgeoning class divisions within the society which imperialism fosters and the need for a genuine national democratic revolution and socialist economic construction.

It is the quest for dominance by the imperialist states which motivates their actions towards Nigeria and other African states. Anti-war, social justice, women's and human rights organizations must take into consideration the potential impact of a deeper and longer-term military and intelligence intervention in Nigeria.

Developments in Ukraine

Votes for Independence in Eastern Ukraine

On Sunday, May 11, residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Eastern Ukraine held referenda on whether to declare independence from Ukraine, in opposition to the regime installed in Ukraine considered to be reactionary or neo-fascist.

News reports state that in Donetsk, 89.07 per cent of voters backed independence in its referendum Sunday. The turnout for the referendum was 74.87 per cent and 10.1 per cent voted against independence, the head of the Donetsk People's Republic's electoral commission Roman Lyagin said late Sunday. The question on the ballot read, "Do you support the act of state-rule of the Donetsk People's Republic?" A similar ballot question was posed in the Lugansk referendum. In Lugansk, the local election commission said voter turnout was 75 per cent and 96.2 per cent of voters supported the region's self-rule.

On May 7, Putin had asked the protesters in Donetsk and Lugansk to postpone their polls and seek dialogue with Ukrainian authorities, but the request was rejected.

About 3 million ballots were distributed in towns and cities in the two regions, which have a total population of 6.6 million.

The government in Kiev sent its recently formed paramilitary forces to Donetsk and Lugansk regions to disrupt the referenda, RT reports. Voting in four towns across Lugansk region was disrupted as armoured military vehicles blocked passage to polling stations. In the Donetsk town of Krasnoarmeysk, the National Guard shot at a crowd and killed two civilians who were protesting their attempt to seize a polling station.

On March 18, Crimea joined Russia following an independence referendum. As with the referendum in Crimea, the EU and western countries are not recognizing the results of the referenda held in Donetsk and Lugansk.

(Xinhua, RT)

IMF and Ukrainian Government Burden People
with $17-Billion Loan

Ukraine is said to be bankrupt and the government in Kiev has taken a $17-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Ukraine's creditors include western banks, Russian energy monopoly Gazprom which is owed $2.7 billion, and the IMF itself with $5 billion of the $17-billion loan going to pay previous IMF loans.

The loan is conditional on the government subjecting the people to "structural adjustment," a severe program of austerity. This includes tax hikes, freezing of pensions and a more than 50 per cent increase in the price of natural gas, which is used to heat homes.

The IMF has indicated that Ukraine is in recession and may need more than the $17 billion, or what it calls "a significant recalibration of the program." According to the IMF, such a recalibration would be precipitated by a loss of control of Eastern and Southern Ukraine. Ukraine's industry is concentrated in the East, primarily in the Donetsk region, which is also where much of the population is mobilized against what they consider an illegitimate neo-fascist regime in Kiev. Loss of the region by Kiev would mean a loss of industrial exports and tax revenue for Ukraine.

Will Putin's Referendum Triumph Survive
Ukraine's May Elections?

- Nathan J. Freeman -

The Road to the Present

Since February of this year, events in the ongoing crisis over Ukraine, Crimea, Russia, and the western alliance led by the U.S. have been presented from the Western side as a continuing "surprise" sprung by Vladimir Putin on the West and its friends in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, with U.S. Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland's boast about Washington's spending of more than $5-billion to destabilize the elected government in Kiev still ringing in the ears of millions in and beyond the U.S. or the EU, it has become more than clear who has been springing what on whom, initiating this latest round of U.S.-Russian tensions.

Even admitting all this, however, nobody expected events to unfold with such speed. For weeks, as the German-American political commentator William F. Engdahl has observed, the Russians took their time, sitting on the fence. They watched while today's Brownshirts -- the snipers and rent-a-crowds deployed by the Right Sector and Svoboda (formerly "National Social Party" (sic)) -- stormtrooped their way to the central government buildings of Kiev. They appeared disengaged, watching as Nuland and the U.S.- backed interim premier of Ukraine, Arsenii Yatseniuk, congratulated themselves on their quick victory, but stopped short of taking explicit action. They watched President Yanukovych escape to Russia to save his skin, and they telegraphed no overt response when the Brownshirts moved eastward to threaten the Russian-speaking southeast, even listening patiently as Yanukovych's predecessor, Mme Timoshenko, fresh out of gaol, swore to void treaties with Russia and to expel the Russian Black Sea Fleet from its main harbour in Sevastopol. Putin, cool as a cucumber, stayed silent and still when Yatseniuk appointed oligarchs to rule Eastern provinces, ordered children in Ukrainian schools to sing "Hang a Russian on a thick branch," and issued his promise via the oligarch-governor's deputy to hang dissatisfied Russians of the East as soon as Crimea is pacified.

Workers change the name on Crimea's legislature, March 18, 2014, following the vote for independence from Ukraine. (Xinhua)

Everyday Russians must have thought Putin was being too nonchalant about Ukraine's collapse, waiting so patiently. Russian civil and military officials made a few slow and hesitant, almost stealthy moves. The marines Russia had based in Crimea by virtue of an international agreement (just as the U.S. stations its 5th Fleet in Bahrain) secured Crimea's airports and roadblocks, provided necessary support to the volunteers of the Crimean militia (called Self-Defence Forces), but remained otherwise under cover.

The Crimean parliament asserted its autonomy and promised a plebiscite in a month's time. Everything speeded up, with the poll rapidly moved up three weeks to Sunday, March 16. Even before the referendum could take place, the Crimean Parliament declared Crimea's independence. The results of the poll were spectacular enough in their own right, with 96 per cent of the votes were for joining Russia; the level of participation was unusually high -- over 84 per cent. Not only ethnic Russians, but also ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars voted for reunification with Russia as well. A symmetrical poll in Russia showed over 90 per cent popular support for reunification with Crimea, despite liberals' fear-mongering ("this will be too costly, the sanctions will destroy the Russian economy, the U.S. will bomb Moscow," etc.).

Most experts and talking heads expected the situation to remain suspended for a long while. According to one school of thought, Putin would eventually recognize Crimean independence, while stalling on final status, as he did with Ossetia and Abkhazia after the August 2008 war with Tbilisi. According to another school of thought supported by many Russian liberals, Putin would surrender Crimea in order to save Russian assets in the Ukraine.

Putin's approach fulfilled the proverb about how Russians take time initially to saddle their horses, but then they ride off awfully fast. He recognized Crimea's independence on Monday, before the ink on Sunday's poll results had dried. By Tuesday, he had gathered all of Russia's senior statesmen and parliamentarians in the biggest, most glorious and elegant St George State Hall in the Kremlin, restored to Tsarist-era Imperial glory. There he declared Russia's acceptance of Crimea's reunification bid. Immediately after the speech, the treaty between Crimea and Russia was signed. The peninsula reverted to Russia as it was before 1954, when Khrushchev had passed it to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic without any serious discussion in the Supreme Soviet -- and (according to some) without even recording any vote.

The vast St George Hall applauded Putin loudly and intensely. For the Russians, burdened by memories of the stinging defeat of 1991 when their country was taken apart, regaining Crimea was a wonderful reversal. Public festivities unfolded spontaneously in honour of this reunification all over Russia, and especially in Crimea. Russian historians compared the event with the restoration of Russian sovereignty over Crimea in 1870, almost 20 years after the Crimean War had ended with Russia's defeat, when severe limitations on Russian rights in Crimea were imposed by victorious France and Britain. The events of mid-March 2014 have liberated the Russian Black Sea Fleet to develop and sail freely again, enabling it to defend Syria in the next round of East-West confrontation. The cherry on the cake? It must have been the additional joy of outwitting the adversary. The American neocons had initially arranged the coup in Ukraine and sent the unhappy country crashing down, but the first tangible fruit of this breakup went to Russia.

The U.S. neocons' role in the Kiev coup was clarified by two further independent exposures. In the first, Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek showed that the anti-Russian campaign of recent months (gay protests, Wahl affair, etc.) was organized by the neocon PNAC (Project for a New American Century, now renamed FPI) led by Mr Robert Kagan -- husband of Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland.

The second exposé was an interview with Alexander Yakimenko, the head of Ukrainian Secret Services (SBU) who had escaped to Russia like his president. Yakimenko accused Andriy Parubiy, the present security czar, of making a deal with the Americans. On American instructions, Parubiy delivered weapons and brought snipers who killed some 70 persons within a few hours. Riot police and protesters as well were killed. The U.S. neocon-led conspiracy in Kiev was aimed at the European attempt to reach a compromise with President Yanukovych, said the SBU chief. The EU and Yanukovych almost agreed on all points, but Ms Nuland wanted to derail the agreement, and so -- with the help of a sniper or two -- she did.

The Novorossia Challenge

While the Russian victory in Crimea appeared to be a foregone conclusion, Moscow's position elsewhere in eastern and southeastern Ukraine is less clearcut. The confrontation has shifted to the eastern and southeastern provinces of mainland Ukraine, the region known as Novorossia (New Russia) before the Bolshevik Revolution. In these industrial provinces, which did not belong to the Ukraine before Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power, the working class has not completely lost its sense of being a class-for-itself despite several decades' destruction of Soviet-era habits and outlook.

The public mind remains quite muddled as to who's fighting whom there. In this connection, it cannot be asserted often enough that this conflict is not a tribal one between Russians and Ukrainians. This needs to be reasserted notwithstanding U.S. commentator Patrick Buchanan's claim of this tribal characteristic in his description of Vladimir Putin as "a blood-and-soil, altar-and-throne ethno-nationalist who sees himself as Protector of Russia and looks on Russians abroad the way Israelis look upon Jews abroad, as people whose security is his legitimate concern."

Is Putin an empire-builder? As others have noted: the quick takeover of Crimea was an action forced upon Moscow by the strong-willed people of Crimea and by the brazen aggression of the Kiev regime. Putin hoped he would not have to make this decision -- but once he decided, he acted. However, it is Buchanan's ethno-nationalist assertion that provides the starting-point of even worse disinformation. At this time the Russian ethno-nationalists, who support the Ukrainian ethno-nationalists, are Putin's enemies. Putin is a proponent and advocate of a non-nationalist Russian world.[1]

Meanwhile, as the Russian journalist Israel Shamir and others reminded us recently, social reality in the former Soviet republics since the 1991 collapse belies the simple-minded and brain-dead nonsense shamelessly repeated by the Buchananoid Cold Warriors among the present-day commmentariat. People of Russian culture have been severely discriminated against, often fired from their workplaces. In the worst cases, they were expelled or killed. Millions of Russians, natives of the republics, became internal refugees while millions of non-Russians who preferred Russian so-called universalist culture to "their own" so-called nationalist and parochial ones fled their alleged backwaters for the cosmopolitan centres of Russia. That accounts for the phenomenon that the Buchananoid mindset -- widely accepted among many post-Cold War commentators and "Soviet specialists" from the United States and Canada -- is absolutely incapable of comprehending: modern post-Soviet Russia has millions of Azeris, Armenians, Georgians, Tajiks, Latvians and smaller ethnic groups from the republics. Even less comprehensible from the Buchananoid standpoint: despite the discrimination that has become de rigueur during the post-Soviet period, millions of Russians and people of Russian culture remained in the republics where their ancestors lived for generations and the Russian language became a common ground. 

It is precisely this reality, and the stubborn ignorance maintained about its actual meaning particularly throughout the U.S. establishment, that Putin and his supporters have been able to turn to their political account to such devastating effect against their U.S.-led challengers. Putin's presidency has been defending all Russian-speakers, all ethnic minorities, such as Gagauz or Abkhaz, not only ethnic Russians. Putin defends "the Russian world," including all those russophones who want and need his protection, and perhaps even a majority of the people in the Ukraine -- ethnic Russians, Jews, small ethnic groups and ethnic Ukrainians, in Novorossia and in Kiev.

In his speech on Crimea, Putin stressed that he wants to secure this Russian world -- everywhere in the Ukraine. In Novorossia, meanwhile, the need is most acute, for there are daily confrontations between the people and the gangs sent by the Kyiv regime. While Putin does not yet want to take over Novorossia, his hand continues to be forced as it was in Crimea.[2] This has caused Putin to stickhandle carefully, on the one hand, around the matter of recognizing the utterly illegitimate interim government of the putchists in Kiev, while leaving an opening to deal with an "elected" replacement for that government after May 25 on the other.

Another Path?

One path possibly on which to avoid this major shift might be for Ukraine to rejoin "the Russian world." While keeping its independence, Ukraine could restore full equality to its Russian language speakers. Russophones deserve Russian-language schools, newspapers, TV, and be entitled to use Russian everywhere, while anti-Russian propaganda should cease, along with fantasies of joining NATO. The Yatseniuk interim government is strongly pulled in both directions at the moment. While officially disowning any talk of joining NATO, they persist -- until a future Ukrainian government can take office following the upcoming May 25 elections -- in putting off the repeal of anti-Russian measures that were the first edicts of the Kiev coup administration.

There seems to be nothing in principle standing in the way of such a development. Nevertheless, there are attendant circumstances -- many of them unconnected to the U.S., NATO, the IMF or the Putin Administration -- that operate against resolving any of the contradictions currently blocking the path to a solution. The source of these particular obstacles lies with the so-called oligarchs. According to one source that has access to data current to "the end of 2013," there are "four basic clans [of oligarchs dominating the Ukrainian economy]. Firstly there is the Donetsk clan -- Rinat Akhmetov, whose fortune is estimated at $16 billion. Its main interests are mining and steel production [placing it heavily in eastern Ukraine]. This clan includes Boris Kilesnikov, the Kluevs, Yury Ivanyuschenko. The second clan is the Yanukovych family [from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine]. They control principally the customs officials, farming and infrastructure. By comparison this clan is a bit poorer [with total assets worth about $1 billion]. [Nevertheless,] they have held very powerful administrative positions." (The other two clans are much smaller).[3]

Agents from the clans of Kilesnikov et al. in particular are known to have been active in mobilizing the workers in their enterprises to oppose the Kyiv putschists and their program. Similarly, in western Ukraine, other oligarchic clans have their own connections -- alongside those of the CIA -- into the Right Sector, Svoboda and other Banderite elements. The demands of the workers in the east are especially just, but the fact remains that neither they nor their fellow workers in western Ukraine enjoy significant control over political organizing outside the oligarchs' ambit.

Conclusion

Largely as a byproduct of the speed of events, the impression is widespread for the moment that the Obama Administration has met its match in Moscow. In fact, at the same time, the Ukrainian crisis -- and especially the desperation of the oligarchs within that crisis -- also illustrates how the danger from further U.S. imperialist intervention threatens to become ever more destabilizing even as others, such as Vladimir Putin, find ways to impose limits on the U.S. imperialists' opportunities to operate with impunity.

Notes

1. What is the Russian world?

Russians populate their own geographically sprawling universe embracing many ethnic units of various background, from Mongols and Karels to Jews and Tatars. Until 1991, they populated an even greater land mass (called the Soviet Union, and before that, the Russian Empire) where Russian was the lingua franca and the language of daily usage for the majority of citizens. Russians could amass this huge empire because they did not discriminate and did not "hog the blanket," so to speak. Russians are non-tribal to an extent unknown in smaller East European countries, but similar to other great Eastern Imperial nations such as the Han Chinese and the Turks before the advent of Young Turks and Ataturk. Rather than assimilating immigrants from around the world after slaughtering the original indigenous population in North American style, the Russians partly acculturated their neighbours for whom the Russian language and culture became the gateway to the world. To protect and enjoy this diversity, the Russians protect and support local cultures at their own expense.

This is called a universalist humanist world-view. It does not endorse persecution or discrimination based on national or ethnic origin. Under the Soviet Constitution, one of the aims was to eradicate the Russian chauvinism promoted by the Czars. Affirmative action in the Soviet republics included provisions such that a Tajik, for instance, would have priority to study medicine in the Tajik republic, before a Russian or a non-Tajik Jew; and he would be able to move faster up the ladder in the Party and politics in that Republic. Still the gap was small, and attempts to push great-Russian chauvinism were regularly opposed from regional centres of Russian governance.

After the 1991 collapse of the USSR, the Russian-based universalist world-view was challenged by a parochial and ethno-nationalist one in all ex-Soviet republics except Russia and Belarus. Though Russia ceased to be Soviet, it retained this universalist humanist world-view.

2. The Putin-Medvedev vision for Russia entails strengthening the authority of a single central government but without conceding freedom for any oligarch or group of oligarchs to challenge the authority of the central government. The federal arrangements they envision are intended to protect the oligarchs' economic power on the one hand without conceding to them any of the powers reserved for the central government on the other. "In the old days," so-to-speak, the check against the rise of tyranny at the centre was supposed to be exercised by way of a Soviet-style order, i.e., with a Communist Party controlled by the working people maintaining a continuous check on centralized political power. Pressure was exerted on this system to eliminate the authority of the workers' state until finally the Communist Party was merged with  the Soviet state. Such a  party could no longer provide a political tool for the oppressed and exploited to resist their oppressors and exploiters and on the contrary became an instrument to facilitate their expropriation as takes place in the state-monopoly capitalist countries.

3. This information comes from a 70-minute lecture entitled "Oligarchical topography of Ukraine," uploaded April 24 to YouTube (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXLUJpqaQpY) by Russian academic Andrei Fursov. It provides a detailed and thoughtfully-compiled contemporary source of invaluable information about the Ukrainian oligarchs. These oligarchic clans send their agents into the ranks of the people, to stir them up to fight for those apparently just objectives that also happen to be useful to the oligarchs at that time. The Kilesnikov-led clan which stands at the head of the Ukrainian oligarchs is heavily invested in precisely those sectors serving the Russian market that will never get a penny of IMF loans. Indeed, the leading elements in the IMF want such industrial assets liquidated.

Meanwhile, according to data published recently by the Centre for Globalization Research in Montreal, the only "new industrial program" that the IMF and European Central Bank have in mind for Ukraine is that the 50-km exclusion zone surrounding the decommissioned Chernobyl reactor in western Ukraine become a toxic waste dump for spent fuel from nuclear reactors across Europe.

Solidarity with the Ukrainian People

- Danish Communist Party, May 5, 2014

The situation in Ukraine is becoming still more tense. The threat of civil war and the destruction of the country is real.

The European Union and NATO have for years worked to incorporate Ukraine. The USA has used billions of dollars to destabilize the situation in the country. The European Union has cooperated with and supported extreme-right and fascist forces.

After a wave of fascist violence these forces headed a direct coup, which deposed the popular elected government of the country and its president Janukovits.

Not even one head of government in the European Union or NATO has either condemned those behind the coup or the big fascist party of government, Svoboda, that openly declares itself as anti-communist, anti-Muslim and Russian-hating.

The coup-government has six fascist ministers; among them are the ministers of defense and justice. Those coup-makers have been applauded as democrats by Western powers. Both before and after the coup there have been frequent meetings between these coup-makers and their masters in the European Union, NATO and the USA.

A quick election has been set for May 25 just to give the coup-makers a shine of legitimacy and with the expectation that the situation would quickly come under control. The European Union expects to swallow Ukraine -- the second largest country in Europe after Russia.

The agreements between the new government in Ukraine on one side and the IMF and the European Union on the other side meant -- as often before -- that there is a bill to be paid. The European Union is the tool of big capital, which writes the big bills; higher energy-costs, lower pensions and decreased social services. This is the rough reality of the "Paradise" which the coup-makers have promised the population while tying Ukraine to the European Union.

The coup-makers declare, that they fight for "European values" -- but they do it just to pretend that they are democrats. In the streets of Kiev we see armed fascist gangs patrolling. A wave of terror is hitting the country. In the streets political opponents are assaulted. Monuments to the Soviet victory over Nazism are destroyed.

The response from Ukraine's pro-Russian forces were resolute. Fearing the things going on and their further development, they counteracted -- first in Crimea and later in major parts of eastern Ukraine -- demanding that they themselves should be able to decide their future relationship with Ukraine.

Russia struggles for its own imperialist interest in a still more and more tense clash and showdown with the European Union and the USA on markets, raw materials and military strongholds and positions. Therefore Putin was not passively watching the Western threats and initiative of encirclement. He acted so decisively and quickly that it took the powerful in the USA and the European Union by surprise.

The referendum in Crimea, which took the peninsula back to Russia became for Putin a welcome and opportune moment for him to push Russian dreams of restoring the greater powers of previous eras -- which he actively promotes far into the former Soviet republics.

There is no military solution in Ukraine. On the contrary it is necessary to start a national dialogue, which involves every popular group in the country.

The European Union, NATO and the USA demand that those who occupy town halls, police-stations and other official buildings in eastern Ukraine end their occupations and leave. The Western powers appeal openly to the coup-makers in Kiev to use Special Forces -- actions that have already led to numerous killed and wounded.

On the other hand the Western powers don't say a single word to the fascists occupying the central Maidan square in Kiev. Similarly there is no Western criticism of fascist gangs' open terror in the parliament of Ukraine. No Western governments have demanded an investigation into the brutal bloodbath at the Maidan square on February 20th. This is due to multiple indications that it was the fascists of the so-called Maidan self-defense force and not the now overturned government that were responsible.

The USA and its allies in Europe have long substituted "international law" with "Might Makes Right." Take for example the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the wars against Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Now NATO is threatening with its military and is rearming heavily to strengthen its grip on Russia. NATO member Denmark is also saber-rattling and sending six warplanes to the Baltic countries.

The Western media is acting one-sided and ignoring history to the extent that they are spreading lies, reminding us of the systematic news control of the era of the Cold War. They are spreading threats of war to benefit the military industry.

Solidarity with the Communist Party of Ukraine

The Communist Party of Ukraine has struggled for national reconciliation. It has suggested initiating a national dialogue to promote a new constitution. The party has defended the national unity of Ukraine and recommended a referendum on whether Ukraine should apply for membership in the European Union/NATO or develop closer relations with Russia.

The headquarters of the Communist Party was set on fire and burned to the ground. The Communist Party and its 120,000 members experience threats and violence from armed fascist gangs and the party is threatened with a ban.

The Danish Communist Party expresses its solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and we condemn the interference of big-powers in the internal affairs of the country.

The Danish Communist Party supports the demand, that armed gangs and their fascist leaders be disarmed. We demand the army return to its barracks.

The Danish Communist Party supports the proposals of Ukraine's Communist Party -- through referendums -- to secure a new and democratic constitution and likewise decide on Ukraine's relations with both the European Union and Russia.

The Danish Communist Party condemns the decision of the Danish government to contribute to NATO's aggressive game by -- among other things -- sending 6 fighter planes to the Baltic countries.

The Danish Communist Party expresses its solidarity with Ukraine's Communist Party and all other democratic forces in the country, which are exposed to fascist terror and the threat of being banned.

Danish Communist Party, National Leadership, April 26. 2014

(Original English translation edited for grammar by TML.)

U.S. Hypocrisy and State Terrorism Against Cuba

Members of Miami-Based Terrorist Cell
Arrested in Cuba

On April 26, agents of Cuba's Ministry of the Interior arrested a Miami-based terrorist cell plotting to carry out violence against Cuba. Miami is infamous as a nest of terrorist activity directed against Cuba, as the U.S. government is fully aware and supports.

TML denounces the U.S.' vicious and mendacious double standard on terrorism. The U.S. claims to oppose terrorism. Yet in the name of opposing terrorism, it uses terrorism in forms such as drone warfare, in which the mass killing of civilians is considered "normal." In the case of Cuba, the U.S. state funds the anti-Cuba terrorists in Miami or turns a blind eye to their plans for violence and chaos, which over the years have killed and injured thousands of Cubans. Such is the U.S. imperialists' irrational hatred of Cuba, that at the same time as the U.S. commits terrorism against Cuba and other countries, it slanders Cuba as a perpetrator of terrorism, while keeping Cuba's anti-terrorist heroes captive in its prisons.

A May 7 note from the Cuban Interior Ministry informed:

"This past April 26, Interior Ministry forces detained the citizens of Cuban origin, resident in Miami, United States, José Ortega Amador, Obdulio Rodríguez González, Raibel Pacheco Santos and Félix Monzón Alvarez, as they were planning to carry out terrorist attacks within national territory.

"Those arrested acknowledged that they intended to attack military installations with the objective of promoting violent actions. Toward this end, three of the individuals had made several trips to the island, since mid-2013, to study and practice the execution of their plans.

"They additionally stated that these plans had been organized under the direction of the terrorists Santiago Alvarez Fernández Magriñá, Osvaldo Mitat and Manuel Alzugaray, who reside in Miami and maintain close ties with well- known terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

"Pertinent contact with appropriate United States authorities was made, in order to investigate these events and prevent, in a timely fashion, the actions of such individuals and terrorist organizations based in that country, which endanger the lives and security of persons in both nations."

Posada Carriles is responsible for the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane in 1976 that killed 73 passengers and crew onboard, amongst many other terrorist attacks throughout the Americas. While the U.S. government keeps three Cuban heroes behind bars, serving long sentences for monitoring these actions against the island, Posada Carriles has been exonerated by the U.S.

Fernández and Mitat served short sentences in 2009 for storing weapons and ammunition in South Florida. The District Attorney's Office did not present terrorist charges against them in exchange for the return of 30 automatic and semi-automatic machine guns, a rocket launcher, several grenades, 200 pounds of dynamite, 14 pounds of C-4 and four thousand feet of wiring to be used against Cuba.

Washington's Slanders Against Cuba

- Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations (MINREX), April 30, 2014 -

MINREX forcefully rejects the manipulation of an issue as sensitive as international terrorism, in order to advance a policy against Cuba, and demands that our country be definitively deleted from this spurious, unilateral, arbitrary list, which is an affront to the Cuban people, and discredits the government of the United States itself.

On April 30, the U.S. State Department released its Country Report on Terrorism 2013, which repeated the absurd designation of Cuba as "a state sponsor of terrorism," for the 32nd time.

The State Department was obliged to recognize in its own report that in 2013 Cuba supported and sponsored negotiations between the FARC and the government of Colombia, with the objective of achieving a peace agreement; that there is no information indicating that the Cuban government has supplied weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups; and that members of the ETA resident in Cuba were relocated with the cooperation of the Spanish government.

Despite this, considerations of a political nature and the need to justify at all cost the failed blockade, unanimously rejected by the international community, take precedence over rationality once again.

The only pretext to which the State Department alludes, to support this slanderous accusation of Cuba, is the presence in the country of "fugitives" from U.S. justice, none of whom, it is worth clarifying, have been accused of terrorism. Some of these citizens were legitimately granted asylum, while others who committed crimes in the United States, were duly tried and sentenced, and chose to reside in Cuba after the completion of their sentences.

The Government of Cuba reaffirms that our national territory has never been utilized, nor will it be utilized, to shelter terrorists of any nationality, or for the purpose of organizing, financing or perpetuating terrorism against any country in the world, including the United States. Moreover, our government rejects and unequivocally condemns all acts of terrorism, in any location, under any circumstances, and regardless of alleged motivations.

It is the United States government which employs state terrorism as a weapon against countries which oppose its domination. It uses repugnant methods of torture and advanced military technology, including unpiloted drones, to extra-judicially execute alleged terrorists, including U.S. citizens, additionally causing the deaths of many innocent victims within the civilian population.

Cuba is one of the countries which, for defending its independence and dignity, has suffered over decades the consequences of terrorist acts, organized, financed and executed from U.S. territory, acts which have caused 3,478 deaths and 2,099 debilitating injuries.

Cuba, Latin America and the Caribbean and the world will never forget that the United States continues to harbor terrorists of Cuban origin, such as Luis Posada Carriles, intellectual author of the first terrorist attack on a civilian aircraft in the Western Hemisphere, causing the in-flight explosion of a Cubana de Aviación plane off the coast of Barbados, October 6, 1976, killing the 73 passengers aboard.

Paradoxically, the U.S. continues to hold serving long, unjust prison sentences, those who struggled against terrorism, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, for crimes they did not commit.

The Ministry of Foreign Relations forcefully rejects the manipulation of an issue as sensitive as international terrorism, in order to advance a policy against Cuba, and demands that our country be definitively deleted from this spurious, unilateral, arbitrary list, which is an affront to the Cuban people, and discredits the government of the United States itself.

Peace Talks Between Government of Colombia
and Revolutionary Armed Forces

Joint Ceasefire by Revolutionary Armed Forces and National Liberation Army Announced

On the morning of May 16, Pablo Catatumbo, spokesman of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) Peace Delegation in Havana, Cuba, announced the third unilateral ceasefire, this time a joint ceasefire by FARC-EP and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the other guerrilla force in Colombia.

The ceasefire will start on May 20 and ends May 28. It is timed to coincide with the Colombian presidential election which takes place May 25.

Iván Márquez, head of the Peace Delegation, then read a message to indigenous people, and afro-Colombian, peasant, urban and peoples' communities, as well as to the churches and social and political movements in Colombia.

The message is an emphatic call for unity, beyond any difficulties or disagreements that may have existed at any time or in any place. Unity is necessary to start the march on the road of radical transformations and to reach peace with social justice.

"It's necessary to say that peace is a ... right which is more important than anything else. If there's no peace, there won't be anything, not even a country. Uribe's security is a deceit that only worsens chaos. Security for all Colombians can't exist without peace," reads the statement.

The insurgent forces stressed the need for a National Constituent Assembly, to give the floor to all sectors of society. It called for a united struggle, for example, in the case of the struggle for the Peasant Reserve Zones, which should be, they said, everybody's struggle.

Likewise, the struggle for the ancestral territories of the indigenous people and the afro-Colombian communities is everybody's struggle.

So too the struggle against transnational companies is everybody's struggle.

All these struggles should converge in everybody's conviction that a National Constituent Assembly is necessary to bring them about, the FARC pointed out.

The news of the ceasefire generated an immediate reaction in Colombia, Prensa Latina reports. Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro said that the ceasefire should be extended until the end of the peace talks in Havana and should be taken up by the government side as well.

Two of the spokespeople for the political and social movement Marcha Patriótica, Carlos Lozano and David Flórez, indicated that this was a postive development and also stressed the need for a bilateral and permanent cessation and for the military to respect the ceasefire declared by the FARC and ELN.

Joint Press Release by FARC-EP and ELN

The FARC-EP and the ELN have repeatedly stressed the need to convene a bilateral ceasefire, to channel the peace talks towards an effective and early reconciliation among Colombians.

The response has been the outright rejection by the regime, [which is] arguing that only the permanent offensive against the insurgency can guarantee peace in the country. "Peace is victory," they repeat.

In contrast, and in order to promote more favorable conditions for the talks, we have declared unilateral ceasefires. Paradoxically, this generous gesture has led to the intensification of the offensive by the regime, putting our forces in unfavorable positions.

Today, with the forthcoming electoral contest for the Presidency of the Republic, there are many voices which, with a variety of arguments, ask us for a new declaration of ceasefire so that the electoral political climate will be characterized by the absence of obstacles.

The insurgency does not believe in the Colombian electoral system; we, like millions of compatriots, believe that corruption, clientelism, fraud and all kinds of dirty tricks lead to the illegitimacy of its results. Today's scandals add more strength to our arguments.

However, we believe that such a strong national outcry should be addressed; we will see if the language and the orders of senior officials and members of the military and police leadership, [as a result of] our gesture, will change. We also do this as a beacon of hope for a bilateral cease-fire.

Therefore, we ordered all our units to cease any offensive military action against the state's armed forces or the economic infrastructure, from Tuesday, May 20th at 00:00 am until Wednesday, May 28th at 24:00 pm.

National Liberation Army: Nicolás Rodríguez B.,

Secretariat of the Central High Command of the FARC-EP: Timoleón Jiménez
Colombian Jungle, May 16, 2014

(farc-epeace.org, Prensa Latina)

Press Release on 24th Round of Talks

- FARC-EP, May 4, 2014 -

Havana, Cuba, site of the peace talks -- The 24th round of talks has led to significant advances that put us on the verge of closing the third point of discussion: solution to the problem of illicit drugs. With our proposal on the creation of a Commission of Clarification on the Conflict, we have begun to prepare ourselves for the start of the discussion on the issue of victims.

In an interview with EL TIEMPO, Luis Carlos Villegas, Ambassador of our country in the United States, stated that Colombia will not abandon certain tools such as extradition, and that this could become an instrument to ensure the non-repetition of crimes by the FARC. What is this man, architect of the criminal Free Trade Agreement, talking about? His Free Trade Agreements have plunged many Colombian families into poverty, while many of them have been forced to grow illegal crops in order to survive.

Clearly, this kind of unfortunate statement -- far from contributing to the peace we all want -- sounds like blackmail, which is unacceptable. Anyhow, if Villegas' extradition is the main tool to avoid recidivism in drug trafficking, the FARC would not precisely be its target, if we take into consideration that the production and marketing of illicit drugs has been permeating the whole country for decades, starting with the oligarchy linked to financial capital. They are so buoyant today, among other reasons, because of money laundering from drug trafficking and other not so holy businesses.

Drug trafficking is a transnational, capitalist business, which has evidently penetrated institutions and the national economy and became another aspect of corruption in politics and the dynamics of violence, worsening the social reasons that generated it. As a matter of fact, narco-paramilitarism, which has caused so much damage, especially to the broad masses of the poor, has been nurtured by this scourge.

The FARC-EP, as [a] political-military organization that fights for a revolutionary change leading to social justice and democracy, considers [it] necessary to assume a collective responsibility in order to solve all the problems which generate and maintain poverty, exclusion, injustice and confrontation. This includes the problem of drug trafficking that, together with the escalation of violence, places obstacles to peacebuilding, development and reconciliation.

It would be foolish to persist in blackmail without having any moral authority, or to continue poisoning the environment with aerial spraying, which has been questioned by all experts who study the phenomenon of illicit crops. Such acts obstruct the pace of progress in building the consensus required to come to a Final Agreement.

The FARC expresses its strong condemnation and rejection of drug trafficking in all its aspects, and reaffirms its commitment to contribute effectively, with the greatest determination, through practical actions, to the solution of the phenomenon of production and marketing of illicit drugs. At the same time we express our belief that with the joint assistance of the society and the authorities, assuming the implementation of a new policy to combat the scourge, based on a focus on human rights, public health and social care, we will be able to take Colombia out of this maelstrom of evil once and for all.

With these reflections, the FARC-EP assumes as its own the recommendations from the world of specialists on how to find ... solutions, and thus proposes the following approaches:

1. Look for an open discussion and promote policies that effectively prevent and reduce the harms related to drug consumption and drug control policies. Increase investment in research and analysis of the impact of different policies and programs, and replace criminalization and punishment of drug users by health care and treatment for those who need it, encouraging different governments to promote the already designed models of legal regulation, to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and safety of citizens.

2. Establish better indicators and targets to measure progress, and challenge, rather than reinforce, common misconceptions about drug markets, drug use and drug dependence. Countries that continue to invest mostly in a focus of law enforcement (despite the evidence) should focus their repressive actions on organized crime and violent drug traffickers, to reduce the harms associated with the market of illicit drugs.

3. Promote alternative sentences for small-scale merchants and sellers of primary drugs and invest more resources in evidence-based prevention, with a special focus on youth. We should offer a wide range of options and easy access to the treatment and care of drug dependence, including substitution treatment and prescription of heroin, with special attention to those most at risk, including those who are in prisons or in some way locked up.

4. The United Nations system should provide leadership in the reform of global drug policy. This implies promoting an effective evidence-based approach, support countries so that they can develop drug policies that fit their contexts and respond to their needs, and to ensure consistency between UN agencies, policies and conventions. In conclusion, we need urgent action: since the war on drugs has failed, policies need to be changed right away.

Press Release

FARC-EP Western Bloc Comandante Alfonso Cano, reports to national and international opinion:

FIRST: That on the 3rd of May, we handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, three minors ... 15 and 16 years old (we omit their names to protect their identity), who found a way to be admitted to different units of the FARC-EP, hiding their true age. This way, they joined before the age of 15, in clear violation of the rules of recruitment of our organization, which prohibit incorporation before the age of 15, in accordance with the provisions of the Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

SECOND: We started investigating the irregular situation of their arrival and their particular behavior, using counterintelligence methods and the version of events freely given by the three girls. We could then determine that before turning 15 and prior to joining the FARC-EP, they had been recruited, along with 7 other children, to accomplish this specific mission, by units of the National Police. This was done without the knowledge of their families. They were prepared in basic elements of militias and combat intelligence, under the stimulus of receiving a salary every month, and a larger sum was promised as a reward when they would accomplish the mission.

The period of time for them to stay in the guerrilla units had to be limited, in order to provide information that would lead to the death or capture of guerrilla comandantes, carry out sabotage and contribute to the localization of the group to be able to bomb it.

This is a recruitment of under-15s made by the Colombian armed forces, which, even if it hadn't been done to carry out infiltration and espionage to the FARC-EP, is a war crime.

THIRD: The children, from the rural area Magüí Payan, Nariño, and El Bordo, in Cauca, once the mission was accomplished, had to desert, inviting other active guerrilla fighters [to join them], and report with weapons to the local Police.

The work of sabotage and espionage in service of the enemy are severely punished in our disciplinary regulations, as in any army at war. Considering the fact that they weren't able to carry out any action of sabotage or espionage leading to the death or capture of any guerrilla fighter and given their status as minors, we proceeded to implement the provisions of Article 4.3 c) and d) of the Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions, and as provided in paragraph e) of this regulation, we have also proceeded to inform their families and hand them over to the International Committee of the Red Cross -- ICRC -- so that they can be helped to rebuild their lives somehow.

FOURTH: Before national opinion and the international community, we denounce these criminal, systematic and perverse acts carried out by the Colombian State. In violation of all codes governing the laws of war and international humanitarian law, it recruits children in order to infiltrate them in our organization and send them as cannon fodder without further preparation to fulfill such risky tasks as espionage.

FIFTH: In compliance with the rules of international humanitarian law that inspire our general and disciplinary rules -- imperative foundation of the guerrillas' legality -- disciplinary actions will be applied to the comandantes who didn't fulfill the compulsory duty of comprehensive verification, and who allowed three minors to join our organization as combatants, in contravention of the above mentioned rules that govern the recruitment procedures of the FARC-EP in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions and international treaties that establish the minimum age of 15 to join the armed forces.

SIXTH: We call on the Colombian state and its armed forces, to definitely outlaw these illegal, dehumanized, old and useless practices, in times when peace with social justice is the subject of talks in Havana and a broad national debate. They only reveal the true criminal character of the regime that applies them. We also express our willingness to explain in detail the circumstances that have allowed minors to join our organization (never as combatants while they are under 15, but in the rearguard)

An agreement of a humanitarian nature would be more than appropriate to alleviate the situation of combatants, but also of the non-combatant population, for the State continues to engage them in the conflict, creating networks of informants and promoting dirty practices like the ones we are denouncing now.

Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP

(farc-epeace.org. Original English translation edited for grammar by TML.)

U.S. Destablization Plans in Venezuela

Venezuela's Interior Affairs Minister Details Foreign Involvement in "Destabilisation Campaign"

- Ewan Robertson, Venezuelanalysis.com, May 5, 2014 -

Venezuelan Minister of Interior Affairs and Justice Miguel Rodriguez Torres provides information about
attempts to destalize the country, May 2, 2014. (LaVoz)

The Venezuelan interior affairs and justice minister, Miguel Rodriguez Torres, [on May 2 gave] information on an alleged plan to destabilise the country, detailing foreign involvement in the recent militant opposition street barricades.

Sectors of the Venezuelan opposition, former Colombian and Mexican presidents Alvaro Uribe and Vicente Fox, and the U.S. State Department and other institutions were all accused of being involved in fomenting a strategy of internal destabilisation.

According to Rodriguez, some members of the Venezuelan opposition met in Mexico in 2010 to plan a strategy to remove the government of Hugo Chavez. At this meeting, right-wing Venezuelan politician Leopoldo Lopez was elected to lead destabilising actions, it was alleged.

Street actions were employed by opposition youth groups JAVU, Movement 13 and Operation Liberty, who used "hunger strikes," "self-chaining" and street camps to pressure the government while Chavez received cancer treatment in early 2013, before passing away.

Following this, a street barricade strategy was employed in major cities from January to April this year, in the context of a wave of opposition disturbances, riots and protests. Rodriguez argued that the street barricades were based on an earlier strategy used against the Chavez government in 2004 and "financed by the far-right."

"This time they have tried other methods, with other techniques, with other people to try and reactivate and improve the method of application of the street barricades," said Rodriguez.

The minister, who made his presentation on national television with flow charts and photos of alleged meetings and conversations, said the street barricades were employed along with a diplomatic and media strategy to "attack the Bolivarian revolution."

This campaign allegedly involves the U.S. State Department, which the minister said has the strategic aim of "impeding the continental propagation of the Bolivarian ideal and appropriating and controlling the greatest oil reserves on the planet."

Rodriguez said that the two main planks of this strategy are to accuse top Venezuelan government officials of financing narco-trafficking or terrorist activities, and to attack the government over human rights issues to make Venezuela appear as a "rogue state."

On the latter, opposition politicians such as Antonio Ledezma, Maria Corina Machado, Leopoldo Lopez and Diego Arria were indicated as supplying "manipulated" information on human rights issues to U.S. diplomatic and other sources.

"U.S. institutions and NGOs gather manipulated information to make it appear to the world that basic rights are permanently and constantly violated in Venezuela," Rodriguez said.

Within Venezuela, authorities of some independent public and private universities, the pro-opposition student leader Juan Requesens, and two U.S. embassy officials were also accused of involvement in alleged destabilisation plans.

Rodriguez revealed that 58 individuals with foreign nationality had been arrested while participating in barricades, "almost all implicated in the use of arms." They include Colombians, an American and a Spaniard, and two of those arrested had an Interpol code red out against them.

Opposition figures deny that the protests and disturbances were a destabilisation strategy to remove President Nicolas Maduro from office, arguing that these were spontaneous demonstrations over economic problems and "authoritarian" government practices.

However while some protests were peaceful and exhibited a range of opposition grievances, a key demand by many protest leaders and on the violent street barricades was Maduro's "exit" from office. Regular riots in the wealthy east of Caracas and other affected areas also caused significant damage to property, government offices, public transport, supermarkets and free health clinics.

The unrest led to 41 deaths and almost 800 wounded, with opposition activists, government supporters, other civilians and National Guard officers among the fatalities. [As of May 17, the official death toll is 44 and more than 800 people have been injured -- TML Ed. Note.]

Life has gradually returned to normal in affected areas, after the final street barricades were removed last month. Sporadic small protests and acts of violence continue however.

Small groups of opposition students in the city of San Cristobal, in the western state of Tachira, protested their local universities' return to classes [on May 5]. One group burned a truck belonging to state oil company PDVSA, and clashes with police also took place, leading to several arrests.

Rodriguez said in his presentation on Friday that the militant opposition had now activated a campaign of "targeted violence" after the failure of the street barricades. He placed the assassination of prominent pro-government politician and activist, Eliecer Otaiza, within that context.

Dirty Hand of National Endowment
for Democracy in Venezuela

- Eva Golinger, Postcards from the Revolution, April 23, 2014 -

Anti-government protests in Venezuela that seek regime change have been led by several individuals and organizations with close ties to the U.S. government. Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado- two of the public leaders behind the violent protests that started in February -- have long histories as collaborators, grantees and agents of Washington. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have channeled multi-million dollar funding to Lopez's political parties Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, and Machado's NGO Sumate and her electoral campaigns.

These Washington agencies have also filtered more than $14 million to opposition groups in Venezuela between 2013 and 2014, including funding for their political campaigns in 2013 and for the current anti-government protests in 2014. This continues the pattern of financing from the U.S. government to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela since 2001, when millions of dollars were given to organizations from so-called civil society to execute a coup d'etat against President Chavez in April 2002. After their failure days later, USAID opened an Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) in Caracas to, together with the NED, inject more than $100 million in efforts to undermine the Chavez government and reinforce the opposition during the following 8 years.

At the beginning of 2011, after being publically exposed for its grave violations of Venezuelan law and sovereignty, the OTI closed its doors inVenezuela and USAID operations were transferred to its offices in the U.S. The flow of money to anti-government groups didn't stop, despite the enactment by Venezuela's National Assembly of the Law of Political Sovereignty and National Self-Determination at the end of 2010, which outright prohibits foreign funding of political groups in the country. U.S. agencies and the Venezuelan groups that receive their money continue to violate the law with impunity. In the Obama Administration's Foreign Operations Budgets, between $5-6 million have been included to fund opposition groups in Venezuela through USAID since 2012.

The NED, a "foundation" created by Congress in 1983 to essentially do the CIA's work overtly, has been one of the principal financiers of destabilization in Venezuela throughout the Chavez administration and now against President Maduro. According to the NED's 2013 annual report, the agency channeled more than $2.3 million to Venezuelan opposition groups and projects. Within that figure, $1,787,300 went directly to anti-government groups within Venezuela, while another $590,000 was distributed to regional organizations that work with and fund the Venezuelan opposition. More than $300,000 was directed towards efforts to develop a new generation of youth leaders to oppose Maduro's government politically.

One of the groups funded by the NED to specifically work with youth is FORMA (http://www.forma.org.ve), an organization led by Cesar Briceño and tied to Venezuelan banker Oscar Garcia Mendoza. Garcia Mendoza runs the Banco Venezolano de Credito, a Venezuelan bank that has served as the filter for the flow of dollars from the NED and USAID to opposition groups in Venezuela, including Sumate, CEDICE, Sin Mordaza, Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones and FORMA, amongst others.

Another significant part of NED funds in Venezuela from 2013-2014 was given to groups and initiatives that work in media and run the campaign to discredit the government of President Maduro. Some of the more active media organizations outwardly opposed to Maduro and receiving NED funds include Espacio Publico, Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS), Sin Mordaza and GALI. Throughout the past year, an unprecedented media war has been waged against the Venezuelan government and President Maduro directly, which has intensified during the past few months of protests.

In direct violation of Venezuelan law, the NED also funded the opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Table (MUD), via the U.S. International Republican Institute (IRI), with $100,000 to "share lessons learned with [anti-government groups] in Nicaragua, Argentina and Bolivia...and allow for the adaption of the Venezuelan experience in these countries." Regarding this initiative, the NED 2013 annual report specifically states its aim: "To develop the ability of political and civil society actors from Nicaragua, Argentina and Bolivia to work on national, issue-based agendas for their respective countries using lessons learned and best practices from successful Venezuelan counterparts. The Institute will facilitate an exchange of experiences between the Venezuelan Democratic Unity Roundtable and counterparts in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Argentina. IRI will bring these actors together through a series of tailored activities that will allow for the adaptation of the Venezuelan experience in these countries."

IRI has helped to build right-wing opposition parties Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, and has worked with the anti-government coaltion in Venezuela since before the 2002 coup d'etat against Chavez. In fact, IRI's president at that time, George Folsom, outwardly applauded the coup and celebrated IRI's role in a pressrelease claiming, "The Institute has served as a bridge between the nation's political parties and all civil society groups to help Venezuelans forge a new democratic future "

Detailed in a report published by the Spanish institute FRIDE in 2010, international agencies that fund the Venezuelan opposition violate currency control laws in order to get their dollars to the recipients. Also confirmed in the FRIDE report was the fact that the majority of international agencies, with the exception of the European Commission, are bringing in foreign money and changing it on the black market, in clear violation of Venezuelan law. In some cases, as the FRIDE analysis reports, the agencies open bank accounts abroad for the Venezuelan groups or they bring them the money in hard cash. The U.S. Embassy in Caracas could also use the diplomatic pouch to bring large quantities of unaccounted dollars and euros into the country that are later handed over illegally to anti-government groups in Venezuela.

What is clear is that the U.S. government continues to feed efforts to destabilize Venezuela in clear violation of law. Stronger legal measures and enforcement may be necessary to ensure the sovereignty and defense of Venezuela's democracy.

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