Skip to main content

Washington’s favorite Venezuelan opposition leader exposes links with Colombian paramilitary and narco networks

While the US and its allies glorify Leopoldo López as a new MLK, the US-backed Venezuelan opposition  collaborates with Colombia’s narco-affiliated, death squad-sponsoring former President Álvaro Uribe.
 
by Ben Norton
 
Part 1
 
According to Western corporate media outlets and human rights groups, Venezuela’s far-right opposition leader Leopoldo López is a hallowed saint. 

The New York Times glorified López as the would-be “savior” of Venezuela, akin to none other than Martin Luther King Jr., while Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have dubbed him a noble “prisoner of conscience” and “Venezuela’s most prominent political prisoner.

The real Leopoldo López, however, has repeatedly shown himself to be a violent extremist committed to overthrowing Venezuela’s government no matter the cost. And the right-wing political opposition factions under his control have revealed links to drug trafficking, death squads, and organized crime in neighboring Colombia.

This December, López traveled to Colombia for a series of meetings and photo ops. He flew to the country’s border with Venezuela on a plane registered with a Florida-based company that had sold an aircraft to a Colombian who was busted for trafficking hundreds of kilograms of cocaine in Honduras.

López proceeded to meet with far-right Colombian politicians who were closely connected to drug cartels and paramilitaries that have massacred civilians. His hosts included the notoriously corrupt former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, and his handpicked successor, Iván Duque.

Colombia has helped support some of López’s radical right-wing regime-change plots, including an attempted invasion of Venezuela in May 2020.

While top officials demonize their neighbor’s elected Chavista government as a “dictatorship,” López’s meetings in Colombia took place after at least 86 massacres of human rights defenders in the country, resulting in the deaths of more than 290 social movement activists.

Source, links:


[2][3][4][5][6][7]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The real reason Zionists and their US-Western imperialist buddies are slaughtering Palestinian children in Gaza

globinfo freexchange   Gaza is gas-rich. At least 1.4 trillion cubic feet rich. Geologists and natural resources economists have confirmed that the occupied Palestinian territory lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth, in area C of the occupied West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip. Back in 1999, the Palestinian authority signed a deal with British Gas. Just off the Gaza coast two wells were drilled. It was a multi-billion dollar gift from God and economic boom for both home and abroad.    In 2007, Hamas came to power and Israel launched an offensive on Gaza Strip, leaving behind 1,400 dead Palestinians, but taking with it the gas fields. Within a year, Israel announced the discovery of the Leviathan natural gas field, which did include Gaza's riches, valued at 453 billion dollars. But Gazans have been denied around 47 billion dollars in revenue. As for Tel Aviv, it's gunning to become a new hub.   As Andy Rowell of priceofoil.org repo

Roger Waters & Abby Martin on Gaza Genocide

Empire Files   Legendary Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters joins Empire Files to discuss his longtime advocacy for Palestine and the crisis in Gaza.       

Roger Waters on rise of neoliberalism, fascism & far-right - Julian Assange - Ukraine & Gaza strip

Kontra Channel   A global exclusive by journalist Panos Charitos on Kontra News 21:30 - Roger Waters interview 30 November 2023 on Kontra's main news bulletin.

Time for the anti-imperialist powers to take the keys of the planet from the declining and morally bankrupt West

It's time for China, Russia, the Global South and the Arab World to form a robust coalition with the mission to make sure that international law will truly apply to everyone   by system failure   We are witnessing a genocide in real-time. Israeli Apartheid state has launched another ethnic cleansing operation against Palestinians, not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank too. And the level of brutality of this operation shows that the Zionists of Netanyahu regime are absolutely determined this time to complete what the Israel is trying to do for decades: wipe out Palestinians from their land.   Therefore, in essence, this is just the culmination of an ongoing ethnic cleansing operation against Palestinians that is going on since 1948.   However, there are some new facts in this re-boosted cycle of violence this time, apart from the level of brutality against Palestinian civilians. One, is the fact that the US-Israeli propaganda doesn't seem to be very effective, despit

Ο λόγος που οι δημοσκοπήσεις δείχνουν δεύτερο κόμμα το ΠΑΣΟΚ

του system failure     Σε προηγούμενο άρθρο , αμέσως μετά τις επαναληπτικές εκλογές του Ιουνίου, είχαμε επισημάνει ότι οι τρεις στόχοι που δεν κατάφερε να πετύχει η ντόπια ολιγαρχία είναι συνοπτικά, η στρατηγική ήττα ΣΥΡΙΖΑ και αντικατάστασή του από το ΠΑΣΟΚ, η απομάκρυνση Μητσοτάκη και το "ρετουσάρισμα" της ΝΔ, η αποτροπή εισόδου ακροδεξιών κομμάτων στη βουλή που θα μπορούσαν να αποτελέσουν πόλο έλξης μερίδας ψηφοφόρων της ΝΔ στο μέλλον.  Αναλυτικότερα, ο στόχος της ολοκληρωτικής ήττας του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ και η επιστροφή του στο 3% απέτυχε. Είναι χαρακτηριστικό ότι ο στρατός των διαδικτυακών τρολ του καθεστώτος Μητσοτάκη, επιδόθηκε σε ομοβροντία "λυσσασμένων" αναρτήσεων με κεντρικό θέμα την επιστροφή στο 3%, όπως είχε γίνει και στις εκλογές του 2019. Φάνηκε ότι ο διακαής πόθος του κατεστημένου ήταν να ξεφορτωθεί μια και καλή το κόμμα της Αριστεράς που, απ'ότι φαίνεται, θεωρείται, ακόμα, ένας μη ελεγχόμενος παράγοντας και άρα ένας συστημικός κίνδυνος που μπο

How US media legitimise Israel's barbarism against the Palestinians

By presenting Israel's terror campaign against Palestinians as if it were defensible, the US media are doing their part to help it continue   by Gregory Shupak   Part 4 - An ethical veneer Similarly, The Los Angeles Times declared that " Israel has every right to use military force to prevent " attacks like the ones that Hamas carried out on 7 October and that Israel " must stay true to its values by doing everything possible to minimize the suffering of innocent Palestinian residents of Gaza. " The piece applauds Biden for saying he will ask Congress for " an unprecedented support package for Israel's defense " and for vaguely suggesting that Israel reflect on whether killing thousands of Palestinians will help it " achieve [its] objectives ". The editorial then asserts: " That Israel does not target civilians is small comfort for the families of those killed or wounded. " Perhaps the authors think it magnanimous to mention th

Who controls agricultural land in Ukraine?

The total amount of land controlled by oligarchs, corrupt individuals, and large agribusinesses is thus over nine million hectares, exceeding 28 percent of the country’s arable land. The rest is used by over eight million Ukrainian farmers.   Part 9 - How will the post-war reconstruction plans proposed by international financial institutions affect the agricultural sector?   Ukraine’s staggering and growing foreign debt – estimated at US$132 billion in 2020 – makes it likely that reconstruction will be dictated by international financial institutions and foreign interests, which have already indicated that they will use their leverage to further privatize numerous sectors, including agriculture.    For instance, the World Bank has asserted that Ukraine’s reconstruction must be accompanied by “ further liberalization of the agricultural land market, ” while the Ukraine Reform Tracker, presented at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in July 2022, states that the post-war moment presents th

The BANNED Video Israel Doesn't' Want You To See

Double Down News   Is this what they don't want you to know? 

Gaza 'Textbook Case of GENOCIDE' - Holocaust Scholar

Owen Jones   Raz Segal - an Israeli associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in the US - is someone you need to listen to. When he uses the term 'genocide', it is not done lightly - it is with precision. Here he sets out the case that the Israeli state is committing an ongoing genocide in Gaza - and questions of intent, incitement, prevention and accountability.  

Zionist anti-Palestine censorship is surging

The Real News Network   Dylan Saba, a lawyer for Palestine Legal, was asked to write a piece on the silencing of pro-Palestine voices by The Guardian —only to then be informed at the last minute that his piece had been killed. Saba joins countless pro-Palestine activists and voices who have been targeted with termination, doxxing, harassment, censorship, and even death threats. Saba joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the intensifying war on civil liberties unfolding as public revulsion at Israel's crimes in Gaza grows.