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US declares support for bid to overthrow Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/30/us-declares-support-for--coup-attempt)

- Mike Pompeo tweets in support of 'Operación Libertad'
- Mike Pence, John Bolton and senior Democrat give backing
- Venezuela opposition leader claims coup is under way

The US has declared its support for Juan Guaidó as he called for the Venezuelan military to join an uprising against the government of Nicolás Maduro.

The secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, tweeted a message in support of what he called "the start of Operación Libertad".

"The US Government fully supports the Venezuelan people in their quest for freedom and democracy. Democracy cannot be defeated," Pompeo said.

The vice-president, Mike Pence, also went on to Twitter to egg on the protesters:

"To [Juan Guaidó] the National Assembly and all the freedom-loving people of Venezuela who are taking to the streets today in [ Operación Libertad]," Pence wrote. "Estamos con ustedes! We are with you! America will stand with you until freedom & democracy are restored. Vayan con dios! [Go with God]"

The national security adviser, John Bolton, also tweeted a direct message to Maduro's defence minister, Vladimir Padrino, saying the country's armed forces "must protect the constitution and the Venezuelan people".

"Venezuela's military has a choice: embrace democracy, protect civilians and members of the democratically-elected National Assembly, or face more man-made suffering and isolation,'" Bolton said.

Maduro's foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, pointed to Bolton's tweets as proof of US involvement.

"The heads of the coup d'état admit their responsibility without scruples," Arreaza said. "The Trump administration, in its despair, attempts to spark an internal conflict in Venezuela."

The White House said that Donald Trump was being kept informed about events in Venezuela as they unfolded.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, appealed for "maximum restraint" while Russia, which has backed Maduro financially and militarily, denounced the uprising.

"The radical opposition in Venezuela has once again returned to violent methods of confrontation," the foreign ministry in Moscow said. "Instead of peacefully settling political differences, they have taken a course designed to whip up conflict, and provoke breaches of public order and clashes involving the armed forces."

Russia has confirmed it has sent nearly a hundred military advisers in support of Maduro in recent months, infuriating Washington. Russian news agencies quoted the Russian embassy in Caracas as saying no Russians had been involved in the clashes.

Turkey also weighed in on Maduro's side. "We are against attempts to change legitimate governments through undemocratic means," the foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, was quoted as saying by the official Anadolu news agency.

Ankara has been a staunch defender of Maduro, since he was the first foreign leader to declare backing for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after an attempted coup d'etat in Turkey in 2016

It was unclear whether the Trump administration was prepared to go beyond verbal support and how it would act if the uprising was defeated by Maduro's forces.

According to a source close to Venezuela's opposition, Guaidó did not receive planning support or resources for his move on Tuesday, which came after months of contacts with military officials, the source said.

But the opposition has nurtured links with Washington since well before Guaidó took the political center-stage in January – and such efforts took on a new impulse after Trump took office.

On Tuesday morning, Guaidó was joined outside La Carlota military base by his mentor Leopoldo López – the divisive leader of his People's Will party – who has played a key role in building a relationship with the US, despite being jailed in 2014 and later moved to house arrest in 2017.

López's wife, Lilian Tintori, dined with Trump at the White House in February 2017 in a meeting facilitated by Senator Marco Rubio.

"The Trump administration took a side, supporting the Venezuelan people because they know how we suffer," Tintori told the Guardian in February.

The opposition push in Washington intensified last May, ahead of elections in Venezuela, when a plan was hatched to declare Maduro illegitimate before he would assume his second term in January.

A day before Guaidó formally declared himself Venezuela's interim president on 22 January, Pence called him to promise the US backing.

The next day, Trump made it official, and Washington has proved an outspoken supporter for Guaidó.

But although senior US officials have repeatedly stated that "all options are on the table", the Trump administration has so far taken little concrete action beyond further tightening economic sanctions.

Reuters news agency reported on Monday night that Erik Prince, a prominent and wealthy Trump supporter who runs a global private security business, has been lobbying for a plan to deploy a private army to help topple Maduro.

According to the report, Prince, the founder of the controversial security firm Blackwater, has been seeking investment and political support for an operation that would involve up to 5,000 mercenaries.

Lital Leshem, director of investor relations at Prince's private equity firm, Frontier Resource Group, was quoted as saying: "He does have a solution for Venezuela, just as he has a solution for many other places."

However, Marc Cohen, a spokesman for Prince, said this month that Prince "has no plans to operate or implement an operation in Venezuela".   :P

Erik Prince Reportedly Wants in on the Venezuelan Coup (https://splinternews.com/erik-prince-reportedly-wants-in-on-the-venezuelan-coup-1834412440)

Blackwater founder and DeVos brother Erik Prince is at it again, and by "at it," I mean "itching to do some more war crimes."

Reuters reported early on Tuesday that Prince is looking to build a private army to overthrow embattled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, seeking funding and support "from influential Trump supporters and wealthy Venezuelan exiles." Prince has reportedly been taking his plan on the road as well, holding meetings in both the U.S. and Europe as recently as this month in which he's pitching a $40 billion plan for up to 5,000 mercenaries from Colombia and other Latin American countries to fight on behalf of the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

Unfortunately for Prince, even the White House and Guaidó appear to not want their hands anywhere near the idea. Per Reuters:

White House National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis declined to comment when asked whether Prince had proposed his plan to the government and whether it would be considered. A person familiar with the administration's thinking said the White House would not support such a plan.

Venezuela opposition officials have not discussed security operations with Prince, said Guaido spokesman Edward Rodriguez, who did not answer additional questions from Reuters. The Maduro government did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for Prince also denied the existence of the plan, telling Reuters that Prince "has no plans to operate or implement an operation in Venezuela."

Last year, Prince laid out a plan to privatize the war in Afghanistan (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghanistan-war-privatised-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-interview-a8440781.html) in an interview with the UK Independent.

It's hard to think of a dumber, more violent, and all-around shittier idea than dumping thousands of armed foreign mercenaries into a country that's already on the brink of civil war with the stated purpose of helping to overthrow the government. It's just the cherry on top is that the person who wants to make this horrible idea reality is Erik friging Prince, whose company committed war crimes against Iraqi civilians, and who all but got pantsed on live television last month for denying that he lied to Congress about the role he played in the Trump campaign. (He is now facing new legal trouble in that area too.)

Prince or no Prince, however, it appears that the situation in Venezuela is only getting worse. On Tuesday, Guaidó launched a coup attempt against Maduro's government, which was quickly backed by the State Department.

Venezuela: Coup or uprising? It depends on who you support (https://www.dw.com/en/venezuela-coup-or-uprising-it-depends-on-who-you-support/a-48555362)

Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido has made a new push to oust President Nicolas Maduro and has claimed he has the backing of parts of the army. As protesters face-off with security, the world reacts.

The US White House led support for Venezuelan leader Juan Guaido's push for a military uprising against President Nicolas Maduro's government Tuesday, while Maduro's international backers condemned the push as a coup.

The Trump administration was quick to voice support for Guaido, after leading a mounting pressure campaign since Guaido declared himself interim President in January.

Various officials urged the military to stand by the country's "legitimate institutions", while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on Twitter "Democracy cannot be defeated".

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney rejected comparisons with George W. Bush's 2002 support for a coup against the former leader Hugo Chavez, saying the US did not consider the current uprising to be a coup.

Colombian President Ivan Duque followed suit, calling for "soldiers and the people of Venezuela to place themselves on the right side of history" and rejected Maduro as a dictator. Many Venezuelans have left for neighboring Colombia in recent years.

Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro echoed characterisations of Maduro as a dictator who had "enslaved" Venezuelans and said he was on the side of Guaido.

German foreign minister Heiko Maas, who was in Brazil Tuesday, said Germany's support for Guaido "had not changed" but argued for a political rather than military resolution. Germany is one of 54 countries that recognize Guaido as interim president.

A European Commission spokeswoman declined to comment on the unfolding situation but reiterated the bloc's calls for "free and fair elections" and a "political and peaceful solution".

Chile, Spain and the UK reiterated support for Guaido and Mexico joined them in urging a peaceful solution.

Maduro's allies
Turkey joined Russia, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba in condemning the new push to oust Maduro as a military coup.

Russia's Foreign Ministry accused the Venezuelan opposition of trying to draw the armed forces into clashes by resorting to violence.

President Vladimir Putin has long counted Maduro as a close ally in Latin America and Russia has soldiers stationed there, although Russian news agencies have said they have not been involved in the clashes.

Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called the events a "coup attempt", while his foreign minister said they amounted to a challenge to the country's constitutional order. Mevlut Cavusoglu urged Venezuela to settle its problems through dialogue.

Maduro's Bolivian, Nicaraguan and Cuban allies dialed-up the anti-imperial language.

Bolivia's Evo Morales "vigorously" condemned the "attempted coup in Venezuela by the right-wing that is beholden to foreign interests," urging "brother" Maduro to "beat this new attack by the empire (the US)".

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel also rejected the movement as a coup.

"The traitors that have put themselves at the head of this subversive movement are using troops and soldiers with heavy weapons in a public area of the city to create panic and terror," he said.

Labor Day protest Mayday
Guaido has called for "the largest march in Venezuela's history" on Wednesday, May 1.

Armed vehicles plowed into protesters Tuesday after security had tried to disperse them with tear gas, as demonstrators threw projectiles and Molotov cocktails. Two people were rushed to hospital.
ta/jm (AP/AFP/reuters)

Quote from: thorfourwinds on April 30, 2019, 09:19:58 PM
Labor Day protest Mayday
Guaido has called for "the largest march in Venezuela's history" on Wednesday, May 1.

It sounds like he doesn't know what he wants, a revolution or a march.  :P

Erik Prince Has Plans for Venezuela — If He Can Avoid Perjury Rap (http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/erik-prince-has-venezuela-plan-if-he-can-avoid-perjury-rap.html)

By Sarah Jones

A decade ago, the Iraqi government banned Blackwater Security from operating in the country after its mercenary fighters killed 17 civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square. That might dissuade some from meddling in conflicts overseas, but Blackwater founder Erik Prince is nothing if not committed to his profit margins.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Prince — who no longer has a professional connection to Blackwater — has a new business plan. He'd like to send mercenary fighters to Venezuela, where they would help depose the country's sitting president, Nicolás Maduro. Prince met recently with "influential" supporters of President Trump and "wealthy Venezuelan exiles" to pitch his plan to ship out as many as 5,000 mercenaries to aid opposition leader Juan Guaidó, according to Reuters.

A spokesman for Guaidó said that the aspiring president had not discussed security with Prince, and a source told Reuters that the White House would probably not support the plan. Representatives for Prince and for his firm, Frontier Resource Group, offered somewhat conflicting accounts of Prince's intentions. His personal spokesman told Reuters that Prince "has no plans to operate or implement an operation in Venezuela," but Reuters says that a spokeswoman for Frontier had confirmed Prince's "interest" in Venezuelan security and added that Prince "does have a solution for Venezuela, just as he has a solution for many other places."

If Prince, who is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, can't even get the White House onboard with his reputed plan, Venezuela might indeed be spared his "solution." But while the White House has backed Guaidó's bid to become Venezuela's president, it doesn't control the Venezuelan opposition; an anonymous Venezuelan told Reuters that while Prince's plan likely wouldn't work, "private contractors might prove useful, in the event Maduro's government collapses, by providing security for a new administration in the aftermath."

Venezuela isn't the only country Prince has his sights on. Despite Blackwater's bloody and inhumane tenure in Iraq, Prince recently insisted that mercenary forces could bring peace to Afghanistan. BuzzFeed News reported earlier this month that his Frontier Services Group is operating in Iraq, with the backing of Chinese investors. There may be no greater evidence of Washington's culture of impunity than Prince. Much like the architects of the war in Iraq, he suffered no meaningful consequences for unleashing violent havoc there. Thus, it's no surprise that Prince is still profiteering off various conflicts.

Prince may once again test his ability to shirk consequences. Representative Adam Schiff told the Washington Post on Tuesday that the House Intelligence Committee would make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice over inconsistencies between Prince's testimony before the committee and his actions as uncovered by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

Prince told the committee that his Seychelles meeting with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Investment Fund, was a chance encounter. That doesn't appear to be true. George Nader, the financier who helped arrange the meeting, told Mueller's investigators that he had briefed Prince on Dmitriev, who was, according to the report, "looking to build a link with the incoming Trump administration."

After Prince booked a ticket to the Seychelles, Nader wrote to Dmitriev directly to tell him that he had arranged a meeting with a member of the Trump transition team, referring to Prince, who at the time served in a loose capacity as an adviser to Trump's incoming government.

Though the House Intelligence Committee can make a criminal referral to the DOJ, the responsibility and authority to act lies with that department. It's an open question whether the DOJ would actually consider prosecuting the brother of a Cabinet secretary — and in fact, the DOJ might not be able to prosecute Prince at all. Prince's statements to the Mueller team might be protected by an agreement that they not be used against him, Schiff noted.

That means Prince might get off free, again.





Schiff refers Blackwater founder Prince to DOJ over alleged false statements to Congress (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/schiff-refers-blackwater-founder-erik-prince-to-doj-over-alleged-false-statements-to-congress)


By Brooke Singman, Samuel Chamberlain | Fox News

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., formally referred Blackwater founder Erik Prince to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation over whether Prince lied to the panel about a 2016 meeting in the Seychelles islands with a Russian banker tied to Vladimir Putin.

In a statement, the committee said it had "identified at least six categories of materially false statements" Prince made about the meeting with Kirill Dmitriev when he appeared before the committee in November 2017.

In a letter to Attorney General William Barr, Schiff said Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials "strongly indicates that Erik Prince knowingly and willfully provided materially false testimony," which Schiff argued "hindered the Committee's ability to fully understand and examine foreign efforts to undermine our political process and national security, develop appropriate legislative and policy remedies to counter future malign influence operations targeting campaigns and presidential transitions, and inform the American public, as appropriate."

"I do believe that there is very strong evidence that he willingly misled the committee and willingly made false statements to the committee," Schiff told The Washington Post's Bob Costa during a panel event earlier Tuesday.

"The evidence is so weighty that the Justice Department needs to consider this. His testimony, which I can discuss because it is public record, was that his meeting in Seychelles with this Russian banker [Dmitriev] was purely by chance. He just happened to go to Seychelles for about a day and have a chance meeting with the Russian banker."

Prince, the founder of the private military contractor Blackwater, and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, testified in 2017 that the meeting with the Russian banker was a chance encounter. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report revealed that the meeting was set up ahead of time.

"We know from the Mueller report that this was not a chance meeting," Schiff said Tuesday. "We know there were communications after he returned."

Schiff added that Prince had "discussions" with former White House adviser Steve Bannon about the meeting before he left, and "communications" after he returned from the meeting, a claim the lawmaker said was contradicted by the Mueller report.

"Somehow, mysteriously, magically, the communications between Prince and Bannon have apparently fled their devices," Schiff said. "In very material ways, I think the evidence strongly suggests that he willingly misled our committee and the Justice Department needs to consider whether there's a prosecutable case."

Schiff added that when Bannon appeared before his committee, he "refused to answer almost all of our questions."

"He said he was not answering questions because the White House asked him not to," Schiff said.

Schiff was also asked whether his panel felt that President Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., or his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner gave false testimony.

"I don't want to comment on any others. We have reached the point of ripeness with Prince's testimony that we feel it appropriate to refer it," Schiff said. "I don't want to comment on any others."

Schiff's comments come in the midst of a heated battle between Congress and the White House over subpoenas for former and current officials to testify before House committees leading sweeping Trump-focused probes. Schiff's panel is currently investigating the president's finances.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Maduro is Socialist and the other guy is Socialist-lite.  Russia is also backing M<aduro.  Do we really want to get involved in another conflict?

I know that there are some American posters here who are conservative, and very patriotic.  So I would like to ask you a question about this.  Do you believe that this sort of intervention in the politics of foreign governments benefits America?  I ask because I am not inclined to believe that it benefits the countries in which it occurs.

Quote from: petrus4 on May 05, 2019, 04:23:42 PM
I know that there are some American posters here who are conservative, and very patriotic.  So I would like to ask you a question about this.  Do you believe that this sort of intervention in the politics of foreign governments benefits America?  I ask because I am not inclined to believe that it benefits the countries in which it occurs.

We have enough problems without messing in the affairs of others...

That being said there is the problem of being the Noble Savior. We see those people in Venezuela suffering, and as Big brother we can and should do something

But when we do, it always ends up that the rich war monger take over and since Venezuela has OIL, you can bet that if we do go in, it won't be on Moral High Ground

The founders of our government at its inception told us to avoid foreign entanglements.  Just my opinion, stay out of other governments/countries with their problems.  I'm for helping but good grief...we have gone way beyond that.