Stansfield Smith — Correcting Eva Golinger on Venezuela

Among the disaffected is Venezuelan-American lawyer Eva Golinger, the author of The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela and self-described friend and advisor to Hugo Chávez.

The day after Trump threatened to militarily intervene in Venezuela, Jeremy Scahill posted his interview with Eva Golinger on The Intercept, one reinforcing some corporate press distortions of Venezuela under President Maduro. Golinger hardly goes as far in this anti-Maduro campaign as Scahill, who more clearly fits what Shamus Cooke characterized as “the intellectually lazy ‘pox on both houses’ approach that has long-infected the U.S. left.”

To her credit, Golinger does emphasize the real class issue ignored by “pox on both your houses” liberals like Scahill: Washington’s and the Venezuelan right-wing’s goal is to crush the heart and backbone of the Chavista revolution, “the grassroots, the social movements, the workers, the community organizers, the people who are actually the ones trying, struggling to hold on to anything that’s left of this movement that they have been building and empowering themselves with now over the past fifteen years or so.”

And, counter to claims of Maduro “authoritarianism,” she correctly notes in her recent article:

Imagine if protestors were to use lethal weapons against security forces in the U.S., even killing some of them. In Venezuela, the anti-government protestors have even burned innocent bystanders to death because they suspected them of being ‘chavistas’. Were that to happen in the U.S., the repression and forceful action by the state would far exceed the leniency exercised by the Venezuelan government in the face of these deadly demonstrations.

Yet within her valuable analysis, and precisely because of her valuable analysis, both in the interview and in her article Golinger makes some statements that require correction....

Defend Democracy Press
Correcting Eva Golinger on Venezuela

Stansfield Smith, Chicago ALBA Solidarity and publisher of the AFGJ Venezuela Weekly

See also

Parliamentarians from Latin America’s largest trade bloc condemned Tuesday US threats of war against Venezuela.

“Any threat to the sovereignty of Venezuela or any other Latin American country is unacceptable,” said PARLASUR, the parliamentary arm of the regional trade bloc MERCOSUR.

Venezuela was suspended from MERCOSUR last year, though it continues to hold a voice in the parliament.

In a statement released Tuesday in support of Venezuela, PARLASUR called for “respect for sovereignty, the principle of self-determination and non-intervention”.

“We defend the inalienable right of the Venezuelan people to decide their own destiny,” PARLASUR stated.

The statement continued, “Only the people of Venezuela, through dialogue and peaceful means, within their Constitution, can find a solution to their problems.”

The statement follows recent comments by US President Donald Trump, who warned he was open to military intervention in Venezuela.…

...one of Latin America’s largest social science confederations issued its own statement condemning US intervention n Venezuela.

“Trump’s statements are far from an outburst,” the Latin American Council on Social Sciences (CLACSO) declared.

“Since 1823, the United States has intervened, invaded, occupied, violated and overthrown the sovereignty of almost all countries of Latin America and the Caribbean,” the statement read.

“It has done so through dozens upon dozens of direct military operations or intelligence operations, with the complicity of local … extreme right-wing groups in our countries that have provoked coups, the collapse of constitutional governments, and a permanent democratic fragility in a region that has always been treated as the backyard of an overbearing and authoritarian empire,” the body concluded.

PARLASUR, Lula Warn Trump Against Venezuela ‘Military Option’
Ryan Mallett-Outtrim

Also

A Review of US Media Coverage on Venezuela

Richard Seymour
TeleSUR English
August 25th 2017