Almost nobody outside of Venezuela had heard the name Juan Guaidó before January of last year. Even within Venezuela, his name recognition was far lower than the American and European governments and news companies that support him would lead you to believe. In fact, he has only ‘won’ one election, and in that race he only came second (the top two candidates were elected to parliament). In a surprisingly honest profile, which contrasts steeply with the fawning articles written by wonks last year at the start of his claim to the presidency, the BBC call him “little-known” and claim that he was only chosen as leader of the parliament because “better-known candidates were arrested or had gone into political exile.”
Interestingly, Nicolás Maduro’s presidency is also somewhat of an accident. Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor and close friend, died of cancer in 2013. Unfortunately, where Chávez was an effective political operator, Maduro is not. It is unquestionable that the country has declined since 2013, but it is important that in the West we, with no truly verifiable information of what is happening on the ground, do not judge Maduro too harshly. He is facing down the global hegemony of capitalism: sanctions from European Union countries and America which are causing widespread malnutrition and death; ever-increasing debt to China and Russia as a result of said sanctions; and finally, and the focus of this piece, attempted-coup after attempted-coup after attempted-assassination.
Venezuela’s history of coups begins in 1992 with one of our already established protagonists: Lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez. Chávez’s coup was a reaction against the bloodshed of the Caracazo, a series of protests against the president at the time’s neoliberal economic reforms and his collaboration with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank which were crushed ruthlessly with over 2000 deaths. The coup failed and Chávez was arrested. Chávez appeared on TV several times following his arrest and he began to gain popularity. In 1998, he won the election with over 56% of the vote.
Then came the next coup. Chávez’s wide reaching socioeconomic reforms, for instance setting up missions in impoverished areas of the country and nationalising most of the country’s major industry, put him on the level just below America’s greatest enemies, the so-called ‘Axis of Evil’. And because unlike Iran, Iraq and North Korea, Venezuela was and still is a democracy in which rich political debate happens, the Americans believed that dislodging Chávez would be far easier than overthrowing Ayatollah Khamenei, Kim Jong-il, or even Saddam Hussein. Chávez was arrested by members of the army and taken to prison, but was freed when the general public rose up in defiance to demand his release. The coup failed and the Americans denied any involvement.
Subsequently, evidence emerged of American foreknowledge of the plan. It is not conspiratorial in the slightest to suppose that the CIA may not have just had knowledge before it happened, but perhaps helped in its execution. In fact, if I were a betting man, which I am, I would say that the CIA was behind the coup, which I do. The CIA were almost certainly behind the coup. Relations between the two nations inevitably soured, culminating with Chávez’s now-famous address to the United Nations in which he holds aloft a Noam Chomsky book whilst calling George W. Bush a devil.
Chávez died in 2013, coinciding with the beginning of the so-called ‘Venezuelan Crisis’, which in this humble author’s eyes should be renamed the ‘Venezuelan Genocide’, carried out by the United States and its allies. This piece of writing isn’t meant to deal with the current state of the Venezuelan economy or the situation of the Venezuelan people, and far better and more knowledgable people than me have written and spoken about such issues, so research that yourself, for time cannot be wasted as we are being introduced to our second protagonist, Mr Maduro. Maduro is a flawed protagonist, as he has far less ability in politics than Chávez and has allowed some rot to appear in the government that was not there under Chávez, but his heart is in the right place, which makes him a protagonist as well. Maduro, being less popular than his predecessor, has been an easier target for the opposition, opposition that includes the United States and its allies.
The first notable recent event occurred in 2018, when two or three drones exploded above a military parade which Maduro was attending. Fortunately, the drones missed by some distance, either exploding forty feet in the air or, as one did, crashing into a residential building in the area. Maduro was unharmed and the injured numbered below ten. Blame was said to fall on two minor Venezuelan politicians from the opposition, one of whom was arrested and one of whom fled to Colombia.
Within half a year our comic relief character and also our minor antagonist will be introduced: Juan Guaidó. Guaidó was elected in 2015 to the National Assembly by coming second in his race. His career continued as it started, remaining a minor backbencher until January 2019 when he proclaimed himself President of Venezuela. As already mentioned, he was nobody’s first choice, probably not even his own. His popularity exploded and he spearheaded large rallies across the country. A self-described social-democrat, his program, like many other social-democrats’, is packed full of privatisation and deregulation, hoping to lure international capital back into the country. When his protests and cheap imitation of Barack Obama both failed, he attempted a coup of his own.
If we want to contrast two figures we must look at two failed coups. One is Chávez’s in 1992, the other is Guaidó’s in 2019. Chávez was able to take control of 10% of the country’s soldiers and seized many important locations in Caracas, whereas Guaidó’s coup involved a few dozen soldiers not really accomplishing much at all. Most significantly, we must remember that only one of these coups was done with the backing and support of the world’s most powerful nation. The coup failed (I’ve said that a lot in this article) and Guaidó’s support started to fall. The largest protest held after the coup involved around 5000 people, much smaller than Guaidó and his puppet-masters would have hoped. In polls conducted before the attempted-coup, Guaidó had the support of around 70–80% of the country, but by June that number had fallen to just 36%, lower than Maduro’s 41%.
One of the most comical scenes of his Harpo Marx-esque tenure as National Assembly Jester occurred just outside the parliament building when he and his supporters were prevented from entering by riot police after they incited a crowd to assemble outside. According to the BBC:
“Government supporters ridiculed Mr Guaidó for failing to clamber over the metal railings surrounding the building as police pushed him back. They said the scene was “ridiculous” and that he had been “humiliated”.”
Even Guaidó’s previously rabid cheerleaders began to jump ship. Article upon article questioning Guaidó’s suitability as the figurehead of American and European opposition to the socialist government were written following these comical scenes.
Now we come to the most recent intrigue. On 3 May 2020, a tweet was posted by ‘@SilvercorpUsa’ which declared “Strikeforce incursion into Venezuela. 60 Venezuelan, 2 American ex Green Beret @realDonaldTrump”. Within 24 hours, 8 men would be dead and 17 would be captured, including those two American ex-Green Berets.
This “Strikeforce” attempted to enter Venezuela by boat less than 10 miles from downtown Caracas. According to one of the the Americans captured, their task was to capture the largest airport in the country and then extract Maduro back to the United States. Destined to fail from the start, the attack was the product of a contract signed by Guaidó and the leader of Silvercorp, one Jordan Goudreau.
Goudreau and the other plotters based themselves in the JW Marriott hotel in Bogotá, Colombia. Most of those involved in the plan were drug traffickers, scammers, grifters, and disgraced former Venezuelan soldiers. Another of the ringleaders, Clíver Alcalá Cordones, has recently handed himself in to American authorities after a $10million bounty was placed on his head due to his involvement with drug trafficking.
Guaidó has, of course, categorically denied any involvement with the plan, despite the fact that several of his advisors and close allies have admitted involvement. Is it really possible that he was unaware of this plan, which was due to cost him over $200million? Of course not. Guaidó’s signature, which he claims was forged, is on a piece of paper in Goudreau’s possession.
Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denies any direct involvement on the American government’s end, and I am inclined to believe him. Comparisons have been drawn to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, but the key difference here is that the Cuban exiles actually managed to land on Cuba before being blown away by the Cuban military. In this Venezuelan raid, they were riddled with lead before they even got off their boats. So, in my view, if it was a CIA-backed raid it would have been slightly more successful. But, who can tell? Is it actually just a sign of the impotence of the crumbling American Empire that they couldn’t even reach the beach this time? I think this question should be met with an affirmative answer whether the CIA was directly involved or not. Just like in Chile with Pinochet, or in Iran with the Shah, Guaidó is America’s man: one of their tools to eradicate socialism anywhere it rears its head.
But behind the comedy, there are real things to be learnt from these farces. Perpetually in decline ever since its conception, the American empire has begun to fail so badly that even its most loyal supporters are embarrassed and unable to defend its actions. Images like Salvador Allende’s bullet-struck glasses or Saddam Hussein being dragged from his foxhole will become rarer and rarer until one day, I hope, it will be an American president being dragged from the White House by Americans that are tired of neglect at home and failed adventurism abroad, both of which are dished out in liberal portions.
Interventionism and sticking one’s nose where it isn’t wanted have been the specialty of American policy since their confirmation as an empire in 1945. But failure has also been their speciality. Even in Vietnam, just two decades into being the prime superpower and empire in the world, they were failing. Hell, even in Korea, just five years into their hegemony, the Americans, along with their South Korean and British lackeys, could only fight the Chinese and North Koreans to a stalemate.
America’s failures have frequently been comical, but the evil is always close-by. This raid by Silvercorp reeks of a sense of racial superiority that has always been felt by imperial nations. Goudreau and his fellow moronic ex-special forces clearly thought that they could defeat the Venezuelan Armed Forces by virtue that their operation was ‘masterminded’ by white Americans. Maduro’s supporters, most of them being from the country’s black and mestizo population, would be no match for the invasion comprised of Americans and European-descended Venezuelans. Of course, as it frequently has been in the past, the opposite was the case, and the putschists were actually defeated by a group of black and mestizo socialist fishermen.
Guaidó is now on borrowed time. In the short-run, it looks as if he still has American backing. But in the long-run, if nothing more is accomplished by Guaidó (and looking at his popularity ratings and his dire lack of support, this seems likely), Maduro may have a new enemy to contend with. We must hope that the next one is just as useless as the current.
