The on-going coup in Venezuela
By Jorge Martin (Hands off Venezuela)

Even though the coup has not yet succeeded, the impression one gets is that there is an inexorable march forward in its implementation which is pushed mainly from forces abroad rather than in Venezuela itself.

There are now plenty of newspaper reports which detail the way this coup plot was hatched, in the US, with the collaboration of Marco Rubio and top Trump administration officials. The hawks now control the whole operation (having removed "moderates" like Tillerson), Pence, Pompeo, Bolton, Abrams, all of them cold war veterans committed to putting an end to anything which smells of revolution in Latin America. Meetings which have been reported go back nearly two years, but more recently, the plans around Guaidó were discussed in Washington in December, that is BEFORE he was even elected president of the national assembly. 

At a rally with reactionary Venezuelans in Florida on Feb 2, Mike Pence promised to bring "freedom" to Venezuela and then continue to Nicaragua and Cuba (https://www.whitehouse.gov/…/remarks-vice-president-pence-…/).

On Saturday, Feb 1, there were large marches in Venezuela which were useful to gauge the balance of forces as far as mass support is concerned for and against the coup.

In Caracas the chavista march was clearly larger, occupying most of Bolivar Av, and composed mostly of people from the militias and activists from the community councils and the working class neighbourhoods. A proportion of them came from outside Caracas.

The opposition march in Las Mercedes was large, but clearly smaller. Significantly they showed on stage the flags of all countries supporting self-appointed president Guaidó, including those of the US and Israel. That, the presence of US flags and symbols, was a common feature throughout opposition marches, which took place not only in Caracas but also in all main cities in the country. Overall the opposition mobilised more people, but in Caracas the chavista march was larger.

At the march Guaidó announced what is the next step of the plan: to use the cover of "humanitarian aid" to create a provocation at the border. The announcement was backed by Bolton and Pence (https://twitter.com/AmbJohnBolton/status/1091886111134236672). Three "aid" centres are going to be established, in Brazil, a yet unnamed Caribbean island and in Cucuta, Colombia. The latter is the most important one. The US will deliver "aid" there in the next few days, a week or ten days at most. Then there will be an attempt to "deliver" this aid across the border. 

We need to understand that Cucuta is the capital city of paramilitarism in Colombia, which in turn has close links with the state apparatus and the current Duque government, as well as landowners and capitalists in the Venezuelan side of the border, involved in smuggling and other illegal activities. 

There are also so-called "rebel soldiers" in Colombia which can be used for this purpose. Some of them are probably far right former Venezuelan soldiers, others are more likely to be Colombian paramilitaries in disguise. 

They have said openly that they will seek a confrontation with Venezuelan guards at the border "to see if they prevent aid from coming in or they defy Maduro's orders". This is a very dangerous adventure as in practice it amounts to an attempt to invade Venezuela under the cover of humanitarian aid and can very easily lead to an armed clash. That is what they seek. An incident which paints Maduro in bad light and justifies military intervention. 

The stakes are very high.

Also on Saturday, a serving general in the Air Force came out in support of Guaidó. This is the highest ranking serving officer to have mutinied to so far, but he had no command of troops. The Venezuelan ambassador in Iraq also defected. 

As I have explained before, the loyalty of the army high command is mostly linked to their control of the state owned companies. That means that the offer of an amnesty on the part of the coup plotters is not particularly attractive to them. However if economic sanctions get too unbearable and they see a chance of Maduro being overthrown, it is not ruled out that a section of the Army might decide that they would rather enter the scene and take over control of a "transition" process than be left out completely and lose power and wealth. 

Today 19 EU countries issued a joint statement where they "acknowledge and support Mr. Juan Guaidó, President of the democratically elected National Assembly, as President ad interim of Venezuela, in order for him to call for free, fair and democratic presidential elections." (https://www.gov.uk/governm…/…/joint-declaration-on-venezuela). At the meeting of EU FM last Thursday they couldn't get consensus (Greece, Italy and a few others opposed or abstained), so today they issued an ad-hoc statement. This is the result of the outrageous 8 day deadline for Maduro to call for elections issued by Spanish PM Sanchez. 

Sanchez's conduct has been particularly scandalous in this whole affair (as Maduro correctly pointed out in the interview he gave to Salvador, on La Sexta TV on Sunday night). After railing against Trump as a "leader of the far right we must combat" two years ago, he has now aligned himself fully with Trump's coup in Venezuela. 

Both Podemos and IU have opposed Sanchez, but the Communist Party, a key component of IU, has gone further and declared that they are breaking all contact with Sanchez. If this extends to IU then it will mean the end of the Sanchez government. 

The joint EU countries recognition for Guaidó has also created conflict in other countries. Italy has refused to sign in despite Salvini's militancy against Maduro. The M5S was against. In Austria the Foreign Minister (from the far right FPO) was against, but finally PM Kurz (OVP conservative) issued a statement backing Guaidó in very clear terms. 

Meanwhile Maduro has announced a signature collection for an open letter to Trump rejecting military intervention and for peace. While a campaign like this can be a useful tool to mobilise people, it is completely hopeless as a strategy to stop the ongoing coup.