Former US official who participated in the coup against Hugo Chavez says there is no doubt that the covert operation was continued against Nicolas Maduro

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Larry Wilkerson, member of the George W. Bush administration talked to Paul Jay of the Real News Network. Wilkerson admitted that his administration was trying to overthrow Hugo Chavez through a 'slow-burning coup d'etat' at least since 2002, and the operation continued uninterrupted until today against Nicolas Maduro.

Wilkerson made some astonishingly sincere remarks about the US policy in Latin America:

You know that I know quite well the history of US relations with Latin America, and in particular with South America. And you know that I was in the administration in 2002 in Washington that essentially started a slow-burning coup d’etat versus Hugo Chavez at the time. And I have no doubt that that covert operation has continued with ups and downs with Nicolas Maduro.

You also know that I know that no move in our hemisphere that I can recall in our history has ever been about democracy and freedom, though we use those words quite loosely to describe our motivation, because it makes the somnumbulent American people feel good.

It’s usually about commercialism, whether it’s Guatemala and the United Fruit Company, and bananas, and land. Or, whether it’s some other country, like today Venezuela, where it’s oil and the 5 percent that we have relations with.

You have to understand that US commercial relations with South America–Central America too, to an extent, but mostly South America – have always been that we try to maintain the wealthiest 5 percent (usually the corporate leadership in that country) in power, because they’re aligned with our corporate leadership in profit-making.

Well, what that does, of course, is put the other 90 or so odd percent of the population, particularly those people in the barrios, the ghettos, those people impoverished and poor with no political power, no means to get ahead, no hope for the future.

What Hugo Chavez did and Nicolas Maduro, in my estimation -sort of colluded and corrupted - but nonetheless, what Chavez did was start to reverse that. As others in Latin America have tried in the past, he tried to give a little political power, a little money, a little prosperity to the lower classes. And that’s not acceptable. You just don’t do that when the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil, Coca-Cola, and a host of other American commercial interests don’t want to do that.

It seems that the operation is not covert anymore as Trump's ruthless warhawks don't bother to offer any pretexts for an invasion against Venezuela.

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