Friday, September 28, 2018

MPP (CR): SUPPORT THE PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA AGAINST THE MILITARY INTERVENTION PLANS OF YANKEE IMPERIALISM, SOLELY OR JOINTLY


AGAINST THE SO CALLED NEW DEFENSE STRUCTURE OF YANKEE IMPERIALISM AND ITS PLAN OF JOINT MILITARY FORCE UNDER THE COMMAND OF THE YANKEE IMPERIALIST AND FORMED BY THE LACKEY ARMIES OF LATIN AMERICA!
In two notes that came up in The New York Times newspaper, in September 8, 2018, entitled: “Trump Administration Discussed Coup Plans With Rebel Venezuelan Officers” and “Venezuela Accuses U.S. of Plotting Coup Against Maduro” respectively, the newspaper covers the conversations held by the United States government functionaries with military officers that were planning a state coup in Venezuela against N. Maduro.
The pretext that is sustained by the high functionaries of the Yankee imperialist government, which means the Trump government, are the same with which they are developing its intervention in all the planes in the internal affairs of Venezuela, which means its concern with the situation of democracy in this country, the torture of the opposer to the regime, the arrest of hundreds of political prisoners, the wounding of thousands of civilians, traffic, etc, the humanitarian crisis in the country and its spread to the other countries in the region (the problem of the refugees).
All these are only shameless pretext from the top representatives of Yankee imperialism, which as sole hegemonic superpower and world great counterrevolutionary gendarme, who acts in its backyard together with the reactionary governments of Latin America to repress the struggle of the proletariat and the peoples of the oppressed nations of Latin America in order to maintain its semicolonial and semifeudal situation, where a bureaucratic capitalism develops serving imperialism, principally Yankee, which is the principal imperialism that oppresses our peoples. And does it by all means by blood and fire, impulsing “democratic” governments of fascist governments according to convenience, through state coups and, when this is not possible, through direct intervention, just as the last hundred years of the history of Latin America has witnessed.
Yankee imperialism, sole hegemonic superpower and principal enemy of the peoples of the world, is deepening and widening its domination over the oppressed nations of our continent, in all fields economic, political, educational, military, etc. It has put forward agreements that allows them to intervene in the internal affairs of our countries I order to do so.
One example of it, among many other, are the agreements at the level of the OEA like the “Democratic Letter”, the continental meetings and statements of “struggle against corruption and organized crime”, against “terrorism”, against “drug trafficking”, the impulse to change all the legal systems of all countries of Latin America, for them to adopt the accusing penal system with the preeminence of the prosecutors in all the process. Providing training to judges and prosecutors through its Institute of Judicial Studies of the Justice Department of Puerto Rico, providing the police that is responsible for anticorruption combat with training and equipment for electronic tapping, while submitting these “anticorruption” police bodies and prosecutors to its direct command; thus it monitors the functionaries of the different countries through these tapping and with the posterior spreading through the media monopolies to impulse the change of functionaries and governments of the different countries into other that better suits their interests.
Through the economic and financial domination of all countries of the region, it imposes sanctions and limitations when it strikes against governments, functionaries and companies of the countries where Yankee imperialism put effort to change functionaries or governments for other that are more convenient to US interests. With the instruments of the IMF, World Bank, IDB, ECLAC it imposes their economic policies like the cut in social security, cut in subsides, that serves their famous plans of combat to poverty like the so called conditioned help to justify the imperialist exploitation of the natural resources and of the proletariat, the dispossession of communal land, spread consumerism and bank-isation of the poorest.
Yankee imperialism impulses its plans of privatization of education in all levels and establish a “plan of scholarships” to justify its plans of suppression of public and free education to benefit its big monopolies that has tentacles in the education business of US and Latin America and with bureaucratic capitalism at its service.
However, all this system with which they are clinching the nodes of its domination over our countries are not enough, not even the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, MDAA, which all the countries of Latin America are part of since after the World War II, together with the American armies altogether and joint army maneuvers and all this is not enough.
This is why since the beginning of the 90s of the last century until today they are establishing a whole “New Defense System in the Western Hemisphere”, divided in a North Command of the USA Army, which will incorporate the Armed Forces of the countries of Latin America that ranges from the south of Mexico to Patagonia. As part of what is in motion from this plan they were deploying the military forces of Yankee imperialism by sea, rivers and land with a whole system of military bases.
This deployment aims to subject all the Armed Forces of the continent to Yankee military command, the North Command and the South Command. In the north they have already advanced including the Mexican Armed Forces in the North Command and in Latin America they are advancing by deploying military bases while incorporating the Armed Forces of Colombia to OTAN and with the South Command Seminars, counting with the participation of representatives of the Armed Forces of some countries of the region, which last year was held in Lima and in this year will be held in Buenos Aires. The Yankees have already set a precedent, which we have already denounced on the opportunity, which was the joint intervention force in Haiti. The first note of The New York Times addressed the following:
“In its statement, the White House called the situation in Venezuela ‘a threat to regional security and democracy’ and said that the Trump administration would continue to strengthen a coalition of 'Ike-minded, and right-minded, partners from Europe to Asia to the Americas to pressure the Maduro regime to restore democracy in Venezuela.’”
It is clearer in the second note of the newspaper:
“’If you don’t like the idea of the U.S. talking to the military, then what do you propose?’ said Richard N. Haass, a former top State Department official in the George W. Bush administration who is now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
He said that while he did not support a coup, the region should consider a ‘Latin American coalition of the willing,’ an alliance of Venezuela’s neighbors created for a possible regional military intervention, similar to the United States’ invasion of Iraq.”
It is clear that the current situation in Venezuela, the failure of N. Maduro regime, a representative of the bureaucratic fraction of the big bourgeoisie, is used as a pretext by Yankee imperialism to carry forward its plans of military intervention, solely or jointly, to dominate the oil and overthrow N. Maduro and replace him with a reactionary who is more loyal to its interests.
But that's not all, the so-called "New Defense Structure of the Western Hemisphere" and the military deployment of Yankee imperialism aims to defend its status as the sole hegemonic superpower at world level, because Latin America, as its backyard, is the strategic base for its hegemony and Yankee imperialism, as a great gendarme, points directly against the development of the revolution of a new democracy in our continent. In some cases, its action as a great gendarme seeks to annihilate the ongoing People's War and the preventive action in other cases, that is, through the coup d'état led directly by them to annihilate revolution in its cradle, as they have been plotting in Brazil.
Yankee imperialism seeks to annihilate the People's War in Peru, which since 1980 the PCP has been developing under the Great Leadership of Chairman Gonzalo, and which has never ceased. Yankee imperialism aims against the rising of the masses in all Latin America, like the one that is taking place in Brazil, where the CPB (RF) advances in the reconstitution of the CPB, in concretizing the vanguard of the proletariat of this country, a process that is also being developed in Ecuador, Chile, Mexico, Colombia and other countries. A process of constitution or reconstitution of the CP that has to be assumed by the Maoists in Venezuela.
A great opportunity to reconstitute its CP has been presented to the Venezuelan proletariat, because it is a necessity, the proletariat of this country represented by its vanguard has to strive to lead the armed struggle to oppose the military intervention of imperialism if it occurs, but whatever the situation, the Maoist revolutionaries in Venezuela must put themselves at the head of the struggle of the masses and struggle to lead it against imperialism, semi-feudality and bureaucratic capitalism and, in the midst of it, constitute or reconstitute their party, to transform this armed struggle into a People's War, in the case of military intervention of imperialism, or, in the case it was not produced, start the People's War to make the revolution. The proletariat, represented by its CP, must initiate and develop the People's War, with military intervention of imperialism or without it, to make the revolution of a new democracy.
In addition, we must not neglect that Yankee imperialism is going through a serious crisis as an expression of its own collapse and sweep away, which is why it is also clear that it intends to take advantage of the situation in Venezuela to internally establish order and gain positions abroad and this is why it fuels the conflict. The collusion and struggle between Yankee imperialism, the sole hegemonic superpower (the fat dog), and Russia, the atomic superpower (the skinny dog), and other powers is also expressed on its development, and in this situation the collusion is expressed as principal, but the struggle underlies and is expressed.
The slogan for support to the Venezuelan people is good, we have to spread it; We have never raised Maduro, but he is being attacked and the action of Yankee imperialism is to arrogantly intervene in the internal affairs of Venezuela and it threatens with its plans for military invasion; an invasion based on a "joint intervention"; Venezuela is an oppressed nation, they are plans of imperialist aggression; what the United States intends to apply is an occupation of the Venezuelan people, Yankee imperialism destroys peoples and acts as a gendarme; Yankee imperialism must be called a great gendarme and the principal enemy of the peoples of the world, because it is.
It is justified and necessary to support the Venezuelan people and we must mobilize the masses with the slogan "Yankees go home!” We must do all kinds of actions in support of the Venezuelan people and against the plans of Yankee imperialism against the deep people, let us sow anti-imperialism.
Yankees, out from Venezuela and Latin America! Let us support the Venezuelan people! As Chairman Gonzalo told us in the case of Iraq: beautiful are the words of the proletariat and the people.
With such a powerful and highly sophisticated war material, Yankee imperialism has only conquered failure since after the Second World War and it is bogged down in the Expanded Middle East, so, on this occasion, it is also good to remember what Chairman Gonzalo told us: the weapon is not the principal, the question is which idea arms the arm, ideology is the weapon of victory, so Lenin taught us and comes from Marx; we have, then, a strict Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, Gonzalo Thought position.

Yankees go home!

Yankees, out from Venezuela and Latin America!

Let us support the Venezuelan people!

Peru People`s Movement (Reorganization Committee)



The two notes that came up in The New York Times newspaper:

Trump Administration Discussed Coup Plans With Rebel Venezuelan Officers

  


  
By Ernesto Londoño and Nicholas Casey
    Sept. 8, 2018
Leer en español
The Trump administration held secret meetings with rebellious military officers from Venezuela over the last year to discuss their plans to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro, according to American officials and a former Venezuelan military commander who participated in the talks.
Establishing a clandestine channel with coup plotters in Venezuela was a big gamble for Washington, given its long history of covert intervention across Latin America. Many in the region still deeply resent the United States for backing previous rebellions, coups and plots in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil and Chile, and for turning a blind eye to the abuses military regimes committed during the Cold War.
The White House, which declined to answer detailed questions about the talks, said in a statement that it was important to engage in “dialogue with all Venezuelans who demonstrate a desire for democracy” in order to “bring positive change to a country that has suffered so much under Maduro.”
But one of the Venezuelan military commanders involved in the secret talks was hardly an ideal figure to help restore democracy: He is on the American government’s own sanctions list of corrupt officials in Venezuela.
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He and other members of the Venezuelan security apparatus have been accused by Washington of a wide range of serious crimes, including torturing critics, jailing hundreds of political prisoners, wounding thousands of civilians, trafficking drugs and collaborating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.
American officials eventually decided not to help the plotters, and the coup plans stalled. But the Trump administration’s willingness to meet several times with mutinous officers intent on toppling a president in the hemisphere could backfire politically.
Most Latin American leaders agree that Venezuela’s president, Mr. Maduro, is an increasingly authoritarian ruler who has effectively ruined his country’s economy, leading to extreme shortages of food and medicine. The collapse has set off an exodus of desperate Venezuelans who are spilling over borders, overwhelming their neighbors.
Even so, Mr. Maduro has long justified his grip on Venezuela by claiming that Washington imperialists are actively trying to depose him, and the secret talks could provide him with ammunition to chip away at the region’s nearly united stance against him.
“This is going to land like a bomb” in the region, said Mari Carmen Aponte, who served as the top diplomat overseeing Latin American affairs in the final months of the Obama administration.
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Beyond the coup plot, Mr. Maduro’s government has already fended off several small-scale attacks, including salvos from a helicopter last year and exploding drones as he gave a speech in August. The attacks have added to the sense that the president is vulnerable.
Venezuelan military officials sought direct access to the American government during Barack Obama’s presidency, only to be rebuffed, officials said.
Then in August of last year, President Trump declared that the United States had a “military option” for Venezuela — a declaration that drew condemnation from American allies in the region but encouraged rebellious Venezuelan military officers to reach out to Washington once again.
“It was the commander in chief saying this now,” the former Venezuelan commander on the sanctions list said in an interview, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals by the Venezuelan government. “I’m not going to doubt it when this was the messenger.”
In a series of covert meetings abroad, which began last fall and continued this year, the military officers told the American government that they represented a few hundred members of the armed forces who had soured on Mr. Maduro’s authoritarianism.
The officers asked the United States to supply them with encrypted radios, citing the need to communicate securely, as they developed a plan to install a transitional government to run the country until elections could be held.
American officials did not provide material support, and the plans unraveled after a recent crackdown that led to the arrest of dozens of the plotters.
Relations between the United States and Venezuela have been strained for years. The two have not exchanged ambassadors since 2010. After Mr. Trump took office, his administration increased sanctions against top Venezuelan officials, including Mr. Maduro himself, his vice president and other top officials in the government.
The account of the clandestine meetings and the policy debates preceding them is drawn from interviews with 11 current and former American officials, as well as the former Venezuelan commander. He said at least three distinct groups within the Venezuelan military had been plotting against the Maduro government.
One established contact with the American government by approaching the United States Embassy in a European capital. When this was reported back to Washington, officials at the White House were intrigued but apprehensive. They worried that the meeting request could be a ploy to surreptitiously record an American official appearing to conspire against the Venezuelan government, officials said.
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Venezuelans waiting to buy government-subsidized food in Caracas in May. The country is experiencing extreme shortages of food and medicine.CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times
But as the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela worsened last year, American officials felt that having a clearer picture of the plans and the men who aspired to oust Mr. Maduro was worth the risk.
“After a lot of discussion, we agreed we should listen to what they had to say,” said a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak about the secret talks.
The administration initially considered dispatching Juan Cruz, a veteran Central Intelligence Agency official who recently stepped down as the White House’s top Latin America policymaker. But White House lawyers said it would be more prudent to send a career diplomat instead.
The American envoy was instructed to attend the meetings “purely on listening mode,” and was not authorized to negotiate anything of substance on the spot, according to the senior administration official.
After the first meeting, which took place in the fall of 2017, the diplomat reported that the Venezuelans didn’t appear to have a detailed plan and had showed up at the encounter hoping the Americans would offer guidance or ideas, officials said.
The former Venezuelan commander said that the rebellious officers never asked for an American military intervention. “I never agreed, nor did they propose, to do a joint operation,” he said.
He claimed that he and his comrades considered striking last summer, when the government suspended the powers of the legislature and installed a new national assembly loyal to Mr. Maduro. But he said they aborted the plan, fearing it would lead to bloodshed.
They later planned to take power in March, the former officer said, but that plan leaked. Finally, the dissidents looked to the May 20 election, during which Mr. Maduro was re-elected, as a new target date. But again, word got out and the plotters held their fire.
It is unclear how many of these details the coup planners shared with the Americans. But there is no indication that Mr. Maduro knew the mutinous officers were talking to the Americans at all.
For any of the plots to have worked, the former commander said, he and his comrades believed they needed to detain Mr. Maduro and other top government figures simultaneously. To do that, he added, the rebel officers needed a way to communicate securely. They made their request during their second meeting with the American diplomat, which took place last year.
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Lawmakers in Caracas last month. The plotters considered striking last summer, when the government suspended the powers of the legislature and installed a new assembly loyal to Mr. Maduro.CreditCristian Hernandez/EPA, via Shutterstock
The American diplomat relayed the request to Washington, where senior officials turned it down, American officials said.
“We were frustrated,” said the former Venezuelan commander. “There was a lack of follow-through. They left me waiting.”
The American diplomat then met the coup plotters a third time early this year, but the discussions did not result in a promise of material aid or even a clear signal that Washington endorsed the rebels’ plans, according to the Venezuelan commander and several American officials.
Still, the Venezuelan plotters could view the meetings as tacit approval of their plans, argued Peter Kornbluh, a historian at the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
“The United States always has an interest in gathering intelligence on potential changes of leadership in governments,” Mr. Kornbluh said. “But the mere presence of a U.S. official at such a meeting would likely be perceived as encouragement.”
In its statement, the White House called the situation in Venezuela “a threat to regional security and democracy” and said that the Trump administration would continue to strengthen a coalition of “like-minded, and right-minded, partners from Europe to Asia to the Americas to pressure the Maduro regime to restore democracy in Venezuela.”
American officials have openly discussed the possibility that Venezuela’s military could take action.
On Feb. 1, Rex W. Tillerson, who was secretary of state at the time, delivered a speech in which he said the United States had not “advocated for regime change or removal of President Maduro.” Yet, responding to a question afterward, Mr. Tillerson raised the potential for a military coup.
“When things are so bad that the military leadership realizes that it just can’t serve the citizens anymore, they will manage a peaceful transition,” he said.
Days later, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has sought to shape the Trump administration’s approach toward Latin America, wrote a series of Twitter posts that encouraged dissident members of the Venezuelan armed forces to topple their commander in chief.
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Venezuelans waiting to register with the Brazilian immigration authorities in April. The economic collapse has set off an exodus of desperate Venezuelans.CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times
“Soldiers eat out of garbage cans & their families go hungry in Venezuela while Maduro & friends live like kings & block humanitarian aid,” Mr. Rubio wrote. He then added: “The world would support the Armed Forces in #Venezuela if they decide to protect the people & restore democracy by removing a dictator.”
In a speech in April, when he was still White House policy chief for Latin America, Mr. Cruz issued a message to the Venezuelan military. Referring to Mr. Maduro as a “madman,” Mr. Cruz said all Venezuelans should “urge the military to respect the oath they took to perform their functions. Honor your oath.”
As the crisis in Venezuela worsened in recent years, American officials debated the pros and cons of opening lines of dialogue with rebellious factions of the military.
“There were differences of opinion,” said Ms. Aponte, the former top Latin America diplomat under Mr. Obama. “There were people who had a lot of faith in the idea that they could bring about stability, help distribute food, work on practical stuff.”
But others — including Ms. Aponte — saw considerable risk in building bridges with leaders of a military that, in Washington’s assessment, has become a pillar of the cocaine trade and human rights abuses.
Roberta Jacobson, a former ambassador to Mexico who preceded Ms. Aponte as the top State Department official for Latin America policy, said that while Washington has long regarded the Venezuelan military as “widely corrupt, deeply involved in narcotics trafficking and very unsavory,” she saw merit in establishing a back channel with some of them.
“Given the broader breakdown in institutions in Venezuela, there was a feeling that — while they were not necessarily the answer — any kind of democratic resolution would have had to have the military on board,” said Ms. Jacobson, who retired from the State Department this year. “The idea of hearing from actors in those places, no matter how unsavory they may be, is integral to diplomacy.”
But whatever the rationale, holding discussions with coup plotters could set off alarms in a region with a list of infamous interventions: the Central Intelligence Agency’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro as leader of Cuba in 1961; the American-supported coup in Chile in 1973, which led to the long military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet; and the Reagan administration’s covert support of right-wing rebels known as the contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
In Venezuela, a coup in 2002 briefly deposed Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez. The United States knew a plot was being hatched but warned against it, according to a classified document that was later made public. The coup took place anyway and the George W. Bush administration opened a channel to the new leader. Officials then backed away from the new government after popular anger rose against the coup and countries in the region loudly denounced it. Mr. Chávez was reinstated as president.
In the latest coup plot, the number of military figures connected to the plan dwindled from a high of about 300 to 400 last year to about half that after a crackdown this year by Mr. Maduro’s government.
The former Venezuelan military officer worries that the 150 or so comrades who have been detained are probably being tortured. He lamented that the United States did not supply the mutineers with radios, which he believes could have changed the country’s history.
“I’m disappointed,” he said. “But I’m the least affected. I’m not a prisoner.”
Correction: September 8, 2018
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified a person in the photograph. It is an unidentified military officer, not President Nicolás Maduro.
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 9, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Met Rebels From Venezuela About Coup Plot.



Venezuela Accuses U.S. of Plotting Coup Against Maduro
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, right, with his closest ally, President Evo Morales of Bolivia, in Caracas in April. Mr. Morales tweeted on Saturday, “We condemn Trump’s coup conspiracy.”CreditCreditFederico Parra/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Federico Parra/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By Nicholas Casey and Ernesto Londoño
    Sept. 8, 2018
Leer en español
Venezuela and one of its allies accused the United States on Saturday of plotting against its president, Nicolás Maduro, who has presided over a near collapse of the country.
Jorge Arreaza, Venezuela’s foreign minister, responded Saturday to an article by The New York Times detailing secret meetings between American officials and Venezuelan officers seeking to oust Mr. Maduro. “We denounce before the world the United States’ intervention plans and help to military conspirators against Venezuela,” he said on Twitter, adding that the article had “brought to light new and crude evidence” of such a plot.
The Times article, based on interviews with United States officials and a Venezuelan former military commander who is seeking to overthrow Mr. Maduro, gave an account of several meetings that took place starting last fall and continuing into this year.
The main request of the military plotters was encrypted radios, which they planned to use to communicate among themselves in order to capture Mr. Maduro and his lieutenants. But the United States never granted the request, and after multiple meetings, the Venezuelans became frustrated. Mr. Maduro’s government has since jailed dozens of the conspirators, though many remain at large.
Among those who denounced the secret meetings was President Evo Morales of Bolivia, a longtime leftist ally of Mr. Maduro, who referred to them on Saturday as “Trump’s coup conspiracy.”
In a tweet he wrote, “The free countries of Latin America will withstand and defeat any further attacks of the Empire against the peace and democracy in the region.”
The White House has not commented on the meetings.
On Saturday, Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said the United States preferred “a peaceful, orderly transition to democracy in Venezuela.” He added that the government “hears daily the concerns of Venezuelans from all walks of life” and that “they share one goal: the rebuilding of democracy in their homeland.”
However, some former officials defended the meetings, arguing that something must be done to stem the humanitarian crises set off by Mr. Maduro’s authoritarian leadership, from shortages of food and medicine to the migration of millions of Venezuelans from the country.
“If you don’t like the idea of the U.S. talking to the military, then what do you propose?” said Richard N. Haass, a former top State Department official in the George W. Bush administration who is now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
He said that while he did not support a coup, the region should consider a “Latin American coalition of the willing,” an alliance of Venezuela’s neighbors created for a possible regional military intervention, similar to the United States’ invasion of Iraq.
While Latin American leaders loudly condemned remarks by President  Trump last year saying there was a “military option” to thwart Mr. Maduro, the reaction to the news that American officials had met with coup plotters was muted this time. Mr. Morales was the only president who came to the defense of Mr. Maduro.
That reflects the growing exasperation with Mr. Maduro’s government, some experts say.
“There is so little sympathy now,” said Michael Shifter, the president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy forum. While Mr. Shifter does not support a coup either, he said comparisons to the overthrow in Chile of Salvador Allende in 1973 by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who became a military dictator, were unfounded, given the humanitarian crisis Mr. Maduro had caused.
There are signs that the Trump administration may harden its stance toward Mr. Maduro, one of the few sitting presidents currently under sanctions imposed by the United States. The White House is expected to name Mauricio Claver-Carone to head Latin America affairs at the National Security Council.
Mr. Claver-Carone is considered a conservative hard-liner on Cuba and was involved in tightening American sanctions against Venezuelan officials. He would report to John Bolton, who came to lead the N.S.C. in April and is also seen as more hawkish than his predecessor.
Shannon K. O’Neil, a vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations, said she would have a wait-and-see approach on shifts in American policy toward Venezuela, despite the growing chaos there.
“Why should Latin America be different than other parts of the world where people have stepped in?” she asked. “But the realpolitik of this is there’s no will to do so yet.”

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