Western
media have described Leopoldo López, a politician who has a dark
history of inciting violent protests, as the “Venezuelan Nelson
Mandela.” But they have ignored the facts surrounding his recent
arrest, as well as that of fellow opposition leader Antonio Ledezma.
by
Whitney Webb
Just days
after Venezuela’s controversial vote to form a constituent assembly
via free and open elections, the Western media – having summarily
condemned the vote as “autocratic” and a step towards
dictatorship – has once again been whipped into a frenzy following
the late night arrests of two prominent figures from the Venezuelan
opposition. Reuters led with an article titled “Venezuela Jails
Opposition Leaders In New Crackdown On Opponents” while the New
York Times tweeted “Masked government agents in Venezuela took away
Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma, 2 opposition leaders.”
Among
independent media, a ZeroHedge story titled “They’ve Just Taken
Leopoldo: Maduro Detains Opposition Leaders At Gunpoint” painted a
dire picture of a “growing crackdown” by the Venezuelan
government, just days after the mainstream media widely painted the
government as a dictatorship hell-bent on clinging to power despite
growing unpopularity.
While
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is by no means as popular as his
predecessor Hugo Chávez, this latest effort by the press to condemn
Venezuela is not entirely honest.
Leopoldo
López and Antonio Ledezma were indeed taken at night by Venezuelan
intelligence and returned to prison. However, the arrests came after
the nation’s Supreme Court ordered that Ledezma and López’s
house arrest be revoked, claiming that they had violated the terms of
the house arrest.
Chief among
these conditions were strict orders to not “proselytize”
politically.
However, in
the lead-up to their abrupt arrests, both politicians had been urging
protests against Sunday’s vote from their homes via social media
and YouTube addresses to supporters. Venezuelan intelligence has also
charged that escape attempts were being planned by both figures.
López often
receives praise in the Western press as a “prisoner of conscience,”
“fiery leader” and the Venezuelan Nelson Mandela. He is widely
perceived as the international face of the Venezuelan opposition.
But
according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, even “for the
opposition parties, Lopez draws ire second only to Chavez. The only
difference between the two is that López is a lot better looking.”
U.S. State Department officials have called López “arrogant,
vindictive, and power-hungry.”
López’s
political past is quite dark, enough so that he himself has sought to
distance himself from some of his past actions, namely his active
role – while mayor of Caracas’ wealthiest district, Chacao – in
the 2002 U.S.-backed failed coup against then-President Chávez.
Years later
in 2014, López co-led the effort to opportunistically take advantage
of student marches commemorating Venezuela’s National Youth Day by
fomenting violent protests among the youth opposition, over whom
López holds considerable sway. He was later arrested for his role in
encouraging the violence.
While in
prison, López has continued to call for violent resistance to the
current government, even urging the nation’s armed forces to
“rebel” against President Maduro last month. It is hardly
surprising that he has done so again in violation of his house
arrest.
Antonio
Ledezma, though less well-known outside of Venezuela, is a veteran
politician in Venezuela and was elected as mayor of Caracas in 2008.
Prior to becoming mayor, Ledezma supported the 2002 failed coup and
had a role similar to that of López in stirring up violent protests
in 2014 that claimed dozens of lives. However, Ledezma is most
notorious for having directed state troops to violently quell the
1989 Caracazo uprising while serving as federal district governor of
Caracas. As many as 4,000 civilians are believed to have been killed
by state police in the uprising.
Ledezma was
initially arrested in 2015 and charged with having a major role in
planning a U.S.-backed coup to oust Maduro. Ledezma’s links to the
coup attempt centered around his having made three phone calls to a
New York-based number that Venezuelan authorities believed belonged
to the financier of the coup plot, Carlos Manuel Osuna Saraco. Other
conspirators, who were also formally charged, were found to have made
repeated calls to the same number.
The slanted
reporting on Venezuela’s crisis is hardly surprising. As MintPress
has reported on numerous occasions, Venezuela has been targeted by
the U.S. for regime change ever since Hugo Chávez came to power
through democratic elections and ended decades of U.S.-supported
oligarchical rule in the country. Venezuela is quite the prize, as it
has the largest oil reserves in the entire world, as well as the
world’s second-largest gold reserves and substantial mineral
wealth.
Also of
concern to U.S. interests are Venezuela’s connections to Russia –
particularly Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft’s large stake
in Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA. Were PDVSA – which is
already in economic trouble – to default on its multi-billion
dollar loans from Rosneft, the Russian oil company would likely come
into control of PDVSA’s U.S. subsidiary Citgo. Citgo controls
critical energy infrastructure in 19 U.S. states.
As in so
many other cases, the situation in Venezuela has all the markings of
a U.S.-backed regime change effort, albeit a more subtle one. From
economic warfare to the weaponization of the media, the U.S. has
already turned up the heat since Sunday’s vote and things will
likely escalate further.
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