Haley, Pence convey US message on Venezuela: only election worth holding is one that results in regime change
“On
May 20, without fail, presidential elections will take place in
Venezuela and the people will defend their right to decide with
votes, without interventions of any kind. The whole world will
witness a new popular expression which will reaffirm the democratic
character of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”
by
Elliott Gabriel
Part
1
As
aggressive neoconservatives increasingly take the helm of the United
States foreign policy establishment, Washington’s appetite for
“regime change” has only grown.
The
reinvigorated mood for intervening in the internal affairs of nations
who don’t adhere to Washington’s dictates was on full display
Tuesday as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued
the demand that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro step down from
office and refrain from holding elections May 20 that he is widely
expected to win.
“The
systematic oppression of the Venezuelan people has become an active
threat to the entire region. For the safety and security of all
peoples in Latin America, it is time for Maduro to go,” Haley
told a conference of the neoliberal Council of the Americas at the
State Department.
Following
the speech, Haley pontificated about how the U.S. and its junior
regional partners must redouble their efforts to force the Venezuelan
leader’s abdication from office: “I am not sure how we will
make that happen but I know that we can’t stop … We have to
continue to isolate Maduro until he gives in.”
Broadening
her fire to include the other leftist governments of Latin America,
Haley described the progressive nationalist and socialist models of
Cuba and Nicaragua as proven “to be a complete and total
failure,” requiring that U.S.-aligned governments work with
Washington to ensure that “the last few surviving
authoritarians” not be permitted to “drag down the
hemisphere.”
Haley
had shown no such concerns about authoritarianism in February when
she visited the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, to drum up support
for the scandalous re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez
and to thank him for his decision to move the Honduran Embassy in Tel
Aviv to Jerusalem.
For
around two months, mass demonstrations and unrest in response to
fraud allegations blanketed the Central American nation. All the
while, Washington backed the right-wing, pro-U.S. incumbent to the
hilt as he suspended civilian law and carried out a campaign of what
local human rights monitors described as blatant “state terrorism.”
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