By David Brooks on May 9, 2019
After the failed coup d’état against the Venezuelan Government openly backed by the Donald Trump Administration on April 30, doubts have been cast in Washington about failures on intelligence and mistaken political evaluations on behalf of the trio made up of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton and Special Envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams, who had convinced their Commander-in-Chief that overthrowing Nicolas Maduro would be “easy.”
According to officials and advisors in the White House, Trump himself is frustrated and has doubts about the aggressive strategy launched against Venezuela. He is allegedly complaining to have been deceived about how easy would be to replace Maduro with opposition leader Juan Guaido, reported the Washington Post this week.
Official sources commented that events on April 30 left aside the option of a military response on behalf of the United States. They now will be analyzing a longer term to achieve the target of a regime change in the South American country.
As a matter of fact, coming back from a rally in Florida last Wednesday — where a broad anti Chavista community lives—, Trump posted on his Twitter profile that his country stands with the “great people of Venezuela for however long it takes!”
Pompeo and Bolton insisted to the media that there was no failure on intelligence efforts, that they continue backing Juan Guaido and that “these things sometimes take time.”
Meanwhile, in the U.S. capital, the conflict with Venezuela is expressed in the luxurious community of Georgetown, where a group named the Embassy Protection Collective has been in the Venezuelan Embassy since April 10, at the invitation of the Maduro Administration. They are now under siege by a group of anti-Chavista people trying to seize the Embassy for Guaido’s representatives, along with the Secret Service and police officers who have repressed opponents to Trump’s policy several times.
On Wednesday, the president of Veterans for Peace was violently arrested by the Secret Service in an attempt to deliver food to the Embassy protectors. Shortly after that, power supply in the Embassy was cut by authorities.
A Code Pink member of the Collective declared that they are “appalled at the administration’s violations of human rights — denying access to food, water, and electricity, allowing violent physical assaults to take place — and the administration’s violation of the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations” by the Trump Administration in his own country.
Source: La Jornada, translation, Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau