Caribbean, Central and South America

The National Lawyers Guild Disputes Carter Center Statements on 2024 Venezuelan Presidential Elections

 
14 Aug 2024

The U.S. has crafted a narrative of a stolen election in Venezuela, supported by the Carter Center as a source. The National Lawyers Guild refutes this false claim.

Originally published in National Lawyers Guild 

The National Lawyers Guild disputes repeated Carter Center press statements regarding the July 28 presidential elections in Venezuela.  The Center issued a public statement less than 24 hours after the closing of the polls calling on the Venezuelan government to immediately publish the election results for each polling station across the country.  As lawyers and scholars, we know that efforts like election monitoring must be done with care and caution, both of which the Carter Center has failed to exhibit. 

It appears that Carter Center leadership has shifted to the right over the last several years, impacting its overall work in the US and around the world.  The Center’s Chief Executive Officer, Paige Alexander, worked for USAID for over 15 years, now called “the new CIA.”   She also sits on the southeast chapter board of the widely discredited Anti-Defamation League, which as recently as 2017 advised local police to plant undercover agents  in anti-racist organizations in the US. A recent Center for Constitutional Rights report demonstrated how they use counterterrorism laws  to target Palestinian solidarity organizers in the U.S., undermining free speech and civil rights. Jennie K. Lincoln, the Center’s senior advisor on Latin America and the Caribbean, is a former consultant with the Organization of American States, from which Venezuela withdrew in 2017 after repeated OAS attempts to undermine Venezuelan democracy and foment instability. Although we recognize that the Carter Center’s Democracy Program is praised for its election monitoring across the world, we are concerned that their funding sources, which include the US State Department, USAID, EU and UK government , make them vulnerable to imperialist political pressure .   This may explain the hastiness of the Center in issuing its various statements and paralleling the US news cycle.   

The Carter Center’s multiple press statements commit serious omissions and misrepresentations that undermine their credibility.  We are most concerned by the Center’s claim that “voting took place in a generally civil manner” and that “Venezuelan citizens turned out peacefully.” Although our observations at voting stations early in the day certainly reflect that assessment, by the late afternoon, violent mobs targeted polling stations across the country to prevent the counting of the voting receipts and the distribution of the tallies. The Carter Center statement also failed to note the targeted attacks on election observers. NLG observers witnessed violent mobs with motorbikes and batons circling the hotel at which international observers were housed.  At one point, our observers had to quickly run off the street to avoid what we fear may have become a violent encounter.  Additionally, the Venezuelan electoral commission has reported a cyber attack that disrupted the transmission of results. The bot attack slowed down connections between the voting machines and the totalization center, and ultimately delayed the totalization process, an attack that should have raised red flags for the Carter Center.  Recently, the Carter Center claimed the cyber attack was a hoax without offering any evidence, contrary to the conclusion reached by a technology professor from the Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. And perhaps worst of all, the Center has failed to mention the violence unleashed by the US-backed opposition , with right-wing mobs blocking key roads, including the one near Simón Bolívar International Airport, attacking buses, police vehicles, and security personnel, assassinating 2 grassroots activists from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and setting fire to a hospital. This was hardly peaceful, either for voters, international observers, or the electoral commission.  The Carter Center’s very serious omissions and misrepresentations in this regard undermine the credibility of both the Center’s previous statements on the July 28 election and the institution itself.

Furthermore, the Carter Center’s assertion that they could not “corroborate the results” of the election is a red flag because, until the statutory time to produce polling results has come to pass, nobody outside the CNE — and now the Venezuelan Supreme Court — has the results. We are struck by the statements’ lack of evidence to defend its claims.  To our knowledge, there is no international law or domestic Venezuelan law requiring that election results be published on the morning after an election, let alone disaggregated by polling station.  In fact, under Venezuelan law the election commission has 30 days to release the results. In the US, states often take weeks to officially certify final results . We are deeply concerned by the time pressure that the Carter Center is placing on Venezuela, which could have the unintended effect of destabilizing the nation and creating the conditions for further violence when tensions are already high.

The NLG delegation’s assessment of the Venezuelan electoral system stands in stark contrast to that of the Carter Center. As with past NLG delegations, our delegation was impressed by the safeguards in place to ensure electoral integrity and the veracity of the results, as well as the efficiency and participatory nature of the Venezuelan election system as compared to US electoral systems. None of the individuals our delegation met with (unescorted by members of the Venezuelan government), in places such as drug stores, supermarkets, the subway, restaurants, and elsewhere mentioned issues with registration or restricted freedom of expression. 

For more information, please see the final NLG report on the 2024 presidential election .

The NLG International Committee (IC) supports legal work around the world “to the end that human rights and the rights of ecosystems shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests.” As lawyers, law students, and legal activists, we seek to change U.S. foreign policy that threatens, rather than engages, or is based on a model of domination rather than respect. The Guild provides assistance and solidarity to movements in the United States and abroad that work for social justice in this increasingly interconnected world.


https://popularresistance.org/salvadoran-ex-combatants-reveal-edmundo-gonzalezs-role-in-us-backed-massacres-in-el-salvador/

Edmundo Gonzalez’s Role In US-Backed Massacres In El Salvador

The Venezuelan far-right former candidate for the presidential elections that were held on July 28, Edmundo González Urrutia, has declared himself the winner despite coming in second place. He has been recognized as the “president” of Venezuela by Washington and some of its vassal states as part of a plot reminiscent of the failed Guaidó project. In parallel, there is a broad campaign on mainstream media and social media to create an image of González as a “bird-loving old grandfather;” a career diplomat with a “democratic vocation” who is “fighting for democracy” against the “Maduro regime” in Venezuela. However, Salvadorans, especially ex-combatants of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) from the Salvadoran war era, remember him very differently.

During 1979-1985, Edmundo González served as the second-in-command of the Venezuelan Embassy in San Salvador, under ambassador Leopoldo Castillo. Both officials participated in the United States’ Plan Cóndor counterinsurgency project in El Salvador, the aim of the project being the destruction of the Salvadoran popular armed revolution.

According to former FMLN Commander Nidia Díaz, during the late 70s and early 80s, the conspiracies to capture, torture, disappear, and kill revolutionaries and their sympathizers were planned in the Venezuelan embassy in El Salvador and were directed by Leopoldo Castillo, whose closest collaborator was Edmundo González. “Castillo was named Matacuras [murderer of priests]—that is how he is known,” Díaz commented. “He was an agent of death and he persecuted Christians in the country. I do not doubt that he was involved in some way with the assassination of Saint Óscar Romero. We know that he was also involved with the assassination of the Maryknoll nuns in November 1982 as well as with the murders of many other priests.”

She added that while she was a prisoner of war, two officials from the Venezuelan embassy interrogated her. One of them was Castillo.

According to US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents declassified in February 2009, Castillo was mentioned as jointly responsible for the intelligence services that coordinated, financed, and gave the order for the execution of Operation Centauro, which consisted of a series of violent actions committed by the Salvadoran army and the Plan Cóndor death squads that were trained, armed, and financed by the US government led by Ronald Reagan to eliminate the Christian communities that were looking for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the war through the application of the principles of Liberation Theology.

During the period that Castillo and González were in charge of the Venezuelan embassy in El Salvador, the Salvadoran armed forces and the death squads killed 13,194 civilians, among them St. Óscar Arnulfo Romero, archbishop of the Catholic Church of El Salvador; four nuns of the Maryknoll order; and priests Rafael Palacios, Alirio Macias, Francisco Cosme, Jesús Cáceres, and Manuel Reyes.

Even after 1985, when Castillo no longer served as a diplomat, he still worked as an advisor to the US intelligence structure in El Salvador, called Pentagonito. It was during this period that he collaborated in the murders six Jesuit priests and two female household workers, namely, Ignacio Ellacuría, who was also the then rector of the University of Central America in San Salvador, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Juan Ramón Moreno, Amando López, Joaquin López, and Elba and Celina Ramos, in November 1989.

Another FMLN ex-combatant and former president of the Salvadoran Congress, Sigfrido Reyes, called Edmundo González “an accomplice of barbaric crimes.” “Edmundo González has this dark past,” said Reyes. “He is directly responsible for and a perpetrator of war crimes and crimes against humanity… Edmundo González’s hands are stained with blood.”

As for the reasons behind such involvement, Salvadoran historian Marvin Aguilar pointed out that it was not just those two diplomats but the entire Venezuelan State that collaborated with the United States’ Plan Cóndor to eliminate revolutions across Latin America. “The United States had its interests… and Carlos Andrés Pérez [then president of Venezuela] wanted international prestige, I think,” he remarked.

The historian added the Salvadoran and Venezuelan ultra-right forces collaborate to this day, albeit in a different form. “Today in El Salvador, there is a group of Venezuelans associated with the anti-Chavista right who work for the government of President Bukele,” he said, referring to a team of Venezuelans allied with the coup-plotter Juan Guaidó who serve as “advisors” to the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. “It is a sort of shadow government. Thus, in one way or another, that connection exists.”

In May of this year, Venezuelan National Assembly Deputy Diosdado Cabello referred in detail to Edmundo González’s dark past in an episode of his TV program Con El Mazo Dando. The PSUV leader said at that time that he got the information from a letter sent to him by a former official of the Colombian Foreign Affairs Ministry, named María Catalina Restrepo Pinzón de Londoño. However, after the program was aired, Venezuelan extreme-right-aligned journalists and social media personalities launched a media campaign claiming that no such Colombian official existed and that González was never involved in the massacres committed in El Salvador during the war era. However, Salvadoran ex-combatants from that same era, as well as documents from US federal agencies, dismantle that propaganda.

It may be mentioned here that in the aforementioned CIA documents, Castillo and González are named together with Luis Posada Carriles, the infamous Cuban counter-revolutionary terrorist and CIA asset who was the mastermind of the Cubana Flight 455 bombing and numerous other acts of terrorism against the Cuban Revolution, the people of Cuba, and other countries of the Caribbean.

In 2008, a case was opened in a Spanish court by the US-based Center for Justice and Accountability and the Spanish Pro-Human Rights Association to bring the Salvadoran assassins and their superiors to justice. The case contemplates the massacres committed in El Salvador as crimes against humanity, and as such, they have no statute of limitations. Therefore, although González and his superior Castillo, who currently resides in Miami, USA, deny their involvement, they may still be called someday to respond to justice.


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The Venezuelan People Stay With the Bolivarian Revolution

 

Photograph Source: Wilfredor – CC0

On July 28, the 70th birthday of Hugo Chávez (1954-2013), Nicolás Maduro Moros won the Venezuelan presidential election, the fifth since the Bolivarian Constitution was ratified in 1999. In January 2025, Maduro will start his third six-year term as president. He took over the reins of the Bolivarian Revolution after the death of Chávez from pelvic cancer in 2013. Since the death of Chávez, Maduro has faced several challenges: to build his own legitimacy as president in the place of a charismatic man who came to define the Bolivarian Revolution; to tackle the collapse of oil prices in mid-2014, which negatively impacted Venezuela’s state revenues (over 90 percent of which was from oil exports); and to manage a response to the unilateral, illegal sanctions deepened on Venezuela by the United States as oil prices declined. These negative factors weighed heavily on the Maduro government, which has now been in office for a decade after being re-elected through the ballot box in 2018 and now in 2024.

From Maduro’s first election victory in 2013, the increasingly far-right opposition began to reject the electoral process and complain about irregularities in the system. Interviews I have held over the past decade with conservative politicians have made it clear that they recognize both the ideological grip of Chavismo over the working class of Venezuela and the organizational power not only of Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela but of the networks of Chavismo that run from the communes (1.4 million strong) to youth organizations. About half of Venezuela’s voting population is reliably wedded to the Bolivarian project, and no other political project in Venezuela has the kind of election machine built by the forces of the Bolivarian revolution. That makes winning an election for the anti-Chávez forces impossible. To that end, their only path is to malign Maduro’s government as corrupt and to complain that the elections are not fair. After Maduro’s victory—by a margin of 51.2 percent to 44.2 percent—this is precisely what the far-right opposition has been trying to do, egged on by the United States and a network of far-right and pro-U.S. governments in South America.

Europe Needs Venezuelan Oil

The United States has been trying to find a solution to a problem of its own making. Having placed severe sanctions against both Iran and Russia, the United States now cannot easily find a source of energy for its European partners. Liquified natural gas from the United States is expensive and not sufficient. What the U.S. would like is to have a reliable source of oil that is easy to process and in sufficient quantities. Venezuelan oil fits the requirements, but given the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, this oil cannot be found in the European market. The United States has created a trap from which it finds few solutions.

In June 2022, the U.S. government allowed Eni SpA (Italy) and Repsol SA (Spain) to transport Venezuelan oil to the European market to compensate for the loss of Russian oil deliveries. This allowance revealed Washington’s shift in strategy regarding Venezuela. No longer was it going to be possible to suffocate Venezuela by preventing exports of oil, since this oil was needed as a result of U.S. sanctions on Russia. Since June 2022, the United States has been trying to calibrate its need for this oil, its antipathy to the Bolivarian Revolution, and its relations with the far-right opposition in Venezuela.

The U.S. and the Venezuelan Far-Right

The emergence of Chavismo—the politics of mass action to build socialism in Venezuela—transformed the political scenario in the country. The old parties of the right (Acción Democrática and COPEI) collapsed after 40 years of alternating power. In the 2000 and 2006 elections, the opposition to Chávez was provided not by the right, but by dissenting center-left forces (La Causa R and Un Nuevo Tiempo). The Old Right faced a challenge from the New Right, which was decidedly pro-capitalist, anti-Chavista, and pro-U.S.; this group formed a political platform called La Salida or The Exit, which referred to their desired exit from the Bolivarian Revolution. The key figures here were Leopoldo López, Antonio Ledezma, and María Corina Machado, who led violent protests against the government in 2014 (López was arrested for incitement to violence and now lives in Spain; a U.S. government official in 2009 said he is “often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry”). Ledezma moved to Spain in 2017 and was—with Corina Machado—a signatory of the far-rightMadrid Charter, an anti-communist manifesto organized by the Spanish far-right party, Vox. Corina Machado’s political project is underpinned by the proposal to privatize Venezuela’s oil company.

Since the death of Chávez, Venezuela’s right wing has struggled with the absence of a unified program and with a mess of egotistical leaders. It fell to the United States to try and shape the opposition into a political project. The most comical attempt was the elevation in January 2019 of an obscure politician named Juan Guaidó to be the president. That maneuver failed and in December 2022, the far-right opposition removed Guaidó as its leader. The removal of Guaidó allowed for direct negotiations between the Venezuelan government and the far-right opposition, which had since 2019 hoped for U.S. military intervention to secure them in power in Caracas.

The U.S. pressured the increasingly intransigent far-right to hold talks with the Venezuelan government in order to allow the U.S. to reduce sanctions and let Venezuelan oil go into European markets. This pressure resulted in the Barbados Agreement of October 2023, in which the two sides agreed to a fair election in 2024 as the basis for the slow withdrawal of the sanctions. The elections of July 28 are the outcome of the Barbados process. Even though María Corina Machado was barred from running, she effectively ran against Maduro through her proxy candidate Edmundo González and lost in a hard-fought election.

Twenty-three minutes after the polls closed, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris—and now a presidential candidate in the November elections in the United States—put out a tweet conceding that the far-right had lost. It was an early sign that the United States—despite making noises about election fraud—wanted to move past their allies in the far-right, find a way to normalize relations with the Venezuelan government and allow the oil to flow to Europe. This tendency of the U.S. government has frustrated the far-right, which turned to other far-right forces across Latin America for support, and which knows that its remaining political argument is about election fraud. If the U.S. government wants to get Venezuelan oil to Europe it will need to abandon the far-right and accommodate the Maduro government. Meanwhile, the far-right has taken to the streets through armed gangs who want to repeat the guarimba (barricade) disruptions of 2017.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

 

Vijay Prashad’s most recent book (with Noam Chomsky) is The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and the Fragility of US Power (New Press, August 2022).

 


US-Backed Canadian Mine in Guatemala Threatens Water Supply for Millions

US-Backed Canadian Mine in Guatemala Threatens Water Supply for Millions

Activists vow to fight the Cerro Blanco mine, which threatens a water supply for millions in Guatemala and El Salvador.

MICHAEL FOX | TRUTHOUT


What Major Media Outlets Aren't Saying About Bob Menendez

Gold bars. Stacks of cash. A Mercedes-Benz convertible.

Bob Menendez, the Cuban-American senator who is facing bribery charges in federal court today, has become a caricature of corruption in U.S. politics.

But what major media outlets aren't reporting is Menendez’s historic ties to U.S.-based terrorists responsible for bombings and assassinations in New York City and New Jersey. Nor is there much news about Menendez's outsized role in imposing devastating sanctions on Cuba that have fueled unprecedented migration to the U.S. border.

In our JUST RELEASED documentary, Hardliner on the Hudson, award-winning Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fernández takes a deep dive into these issues and more. Check it out now for free on YouTube.

video preview

Here’s a social media toolkit for Hardliner on the Hudson for you to easily share the film on your preferred social media platforms.


Also, don’t forgot to RSVP to a virtual premiere event on May 20 at 7pm ET for our groundbreaking documentary Uphill on the Hill, which explores why Biden has embraced Trump’s Cold War-era policy toward Cuba.

HERE is a social media toolkit for Uphill on the Hill.

Please help us spread the word about these important documentaries!

 


Haiti Project Joins the “Dialogue Inter-femmes” on February 29, 2024.

Continued solidarity of Haiti project’s women-candidates campaign with sister organizations

 

Thanks for your interest. Our website is https://haitipolicy.org


 

🇨🇺🇨🇺 

NNOC Statement on Economic Crisis in Cuba

The economic crisis and unrest in Santiago de Cuba underscores the devastating impact of over 6 decades of illegal U.S. sanctions, the no-evidence-based designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, and the inflationary financial manipulation which have led to shortages of fuel, electricity, and basic goods.

Yesterday, people took to the streets in Santiago de Cuba expressing their frustration at the recent power outages. Miami regime-changers and U.S. government-funded propaganda outlets were quick to exploit these genuine frustrations into calls for the overthrow of the Cuban government, but this does not match the reality of the situation on the ground in Santiago, where the protests were completely peaceful and citizens engaged in dialogue with local leaders and law enforcement.

In the words of the State Department itself, the goal of the U.S. blockade is to bring about “hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government” in Cuba (see the Mallory memo). We are seeing this policy play out in real time, and as people in the U.S., we have every responsibility to fight against U.S. attacks on Cuba’s sovereignty. True solidarity with the Cuban people necessitates respecting their right to self-determination, and demanding an end to external U.S. interventions which deny Cuba this right and aim to return Cuba to being a U.S. neocolony like Haiti (which the U.S. and its comprador states are preparing to invade yet again).

We call for the US to take Cuba off the “State Sponsors of Terrorism” List and lift all sanctions - measures that would immediately help alleviate Cuba’s economic crisis.

 

The National Network on Cuba is a coalition of 70+ organizations across the U.S. working to normalize U.S.-Cuba relations and lift the blockade.

 

Cuba says, "Stop The Genocide in Gaza"

  

See:
cubasi.cu/en/news/presentation-republic-cuba-international-court-justice





NNOC & Black Alliance for Peace Statement on US AFRICOM Airstrike Killing 2 Cuban DoctorsRead their statement here


             1. Study Abroad in Solidarity in Cuba,
                            Summer & Fall, 2024, see https://ausm.community/cuba/

2. Solidarity trips to Cuba (from April thru July)

Click for here for more details via: 

To Contact Us:
Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba
P.O Box 1848
Milwaukee, WI 53201
www.wicuba.org | [email protected]

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Haiti crises have reached ‘a critical point’: UN envoy

Play video
Displaced women and children are now living in a school in  Port-au-Prince after fleeing their homes during gang attacks.
© UNOCHA/Giles Clarke
 
Displaced women and children are now living in a school in Port-au-Prince after fleeing their homes during gang attacks.
25 January 2024Peace and Security

More than 8,400 people were victims of gang violence in Haiti last year, including killings, injuries and kidnappings  a 122 per cent increase over 2022, the UN Special Representative for the country told the UN Security Council on Thursday. 

I cannot overstress the severity of the situation in Haiti, where multiple protracted crises have reached a critical point,” said Maria Isabel Salvador, presenting the latest report of the UN political office there, BINUH

The Caribbean country remains plagued by mounting violence and insecurity at the hands of armed gangs against a backdrop of political, humanitarian and socioeconomic challenges. 

Violence spreading 

About 83 per cent of the unprecedented surge in killings and injuries occurred in the capital, Port-au-Prince, but violence has spread elsewhere, specifically Artibonite, the largest of Haiti's 10 departments

South of the capital, gangs conducted large-scale attacks to control key zones and continue to systematically use sexual violence in areas under their control, putting women and girls as young as 12 at risk.

Ms. Salvador said that since her last briefing in October, at least 75 people were reported killed by civilian vigilante movements that have emerged as collective defence against the gangs.

Support Haiti’s police 

Meanwhile, BINUH has continued efforts to enhance the capacity of the Haitian National Police (HNP), but high attrition rates have further diminished the force’s ability to counter gang violence and maintain security.

The Haitian Government and the international community have stepped up support to the HNP over the past few months, she added.

This has included a 13 per cent increase allocated under the national budget for this fiscal year and the supply of individual protection equipment, armoured vehicles, motorcycles and weapons.

Last October, the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of a multinational security support mission (MSS) to back Haiti’s beleaguered police force, which Kenya offered to lead. A 2022 sanctions regime targeting gang leaders and their financiers was also renewed later that month.

Ms. Salvador said she will continue to encourage all stakeholders to effectively prepare for the mission's deployment and again appealed for countries to contribute generously towards this end.

Break the cycle 

While improving the security situation is essential to break the cycle of overlapping crises besetting Haiti, she stressed that long-term stability can only be achieved through a nationally owned and inclusive political process.

Echoing the UN Secretary-General, she urged all political actors and stakeholders “in and for Haiti” to unite in prioritizing and upholding the interest of the people above all.  She noted that “new violent actors have been gaining prominence” in recent months, sparking concerns over their potentially destabilizing role. 

“The continuous support to the Haitian National Police, the rapid deployment of the MSS, effective sanctions and a sustained political process" which results in “credible, participatory and inclusive elections” are essential, she said. 

These are “fundamental elements to restore security and stability in Haiti, where, consequently, the rule of law, democratic institutions and sustainable development become a reality for its people,” she added. 

Arms trafficking ‘blind spot’ 

The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ghada Waly, also updated the Council on arms trafficking and illicit financial flows in Haiti.

A UNODC report last October had identified four major sea and land routes being used for illicit firearm and ammunition flows, mainly from the US. 

The latest report, published on Wednesday, found that there are 11 recorded informal or clandestine airstrips spread out across Haiti.

“They represent a blind spot that is possibly being used by traffickers and smugglers, bearing in mind that smaller aircraft flying directly between the United States and Haiti are difficult to monitor,” Ms. Wady said. 

A regional concern 

Regional dynamics are also important as the deepening crisis in Haiti is not occurring in a vacuum, she added, noting that illicit firearms are a growing concern across the Caribbean, “feeding gang-related activity and drug trafficking in a vicious circle”. 

The report also documents action to combat corruption and illicit financial flows, “which are major factors enabling violence and organized crime and plaguing Haiti’s own justice institutions”.

“Nevertheless, anti-corruption efforts continue to be impeded by insufficient capacity, lack of forensic equipment and limited expertise in conducting complex investigations,” she said.

The next UNODC report will focus on a detailed analysis of gang dynamics in Haiti. 


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  • Pamela Richard
    published this page 2024-03-04 12:06:07 -0600