Imperialism provokes for military intervention in Venezuela: Blood along Brazil border

The mainstream media including Reuters, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and The Independent among others reported on 22 February 2019: Incident of death and injury at Venezuela’s border with Brazil.

However, an Agence France Press report said: “On Friday morning in the southern Venezuelan town of Kumarakapay, a group of persons confronted the Venezuelan security forces while the forces were trying to move to secure the country’s border.

A BBC report said: A group tried to block the Venezuelan security forces from travelling to the border.

A Kumarakapay, Venezuela/Cucuta, Colombia datelined Reuters report said: “Friday’s violence broke out as indigenous leaders in southern Venezuela said they had attempted to stop a military convoy heading toward the border with Brazil […]”

“Gran Sabana mayor Emilio Gonzalez said members of the Pemon indigenous group clashed with the Venezuela National Guard and the army […] Gonzalez claimed the soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas”, said the Reuters report.

Another mainstream media report said: “[A]t a road blockade in Venezuela, […] lawmakers clashed with soldiers”.

The Venezuelan government dismissed the proxy camp’s accusations that soldiers used live fire against civilians. 

“What happened has nothing to do with the versions that have circulated,” Venezuela’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, said in New York at United Nations headquarters, claiming that some of the wounded were injured with “knives, machetes, and even arrows.” Maduro “would never give orders to shoot unarmed people,” the foreign minister insisted.

Arreaza accused the proxy camp of following imperialism’s regime change plan and seeking to provoke the armed forces into clashes.

Details of the incidents will reveal more. But, it is clear that acts of provocation are already on the move. Otherwise, security forces wouldn’t have been obstructed and confronted while the security personnel were moving to secure the border of the country, and lawmakers wouldn’t have clashed with soldiers. Is there any sovereign country that allows such acts – obstruction in the path of securing border? 

Then, the question comes: why was a group of persons organised and activated to obstruct and confront security forces while the force moved to the secure border? Who organised these persons to obstruct the security forces while the forces were moving to deliver their lawfully assigned job?

The acts of provocation turn clear if claim made by the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry is considered:

“We have evidence that US companies and their NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organisation] allies are working on the issue of acquiring a large batch of weapons and ammunition in an Eastern European country for their subsequent transfer to Venezuelan opposition forces.”

Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson, made further claims while making a briefing: The United States is planning to transfer weapons and special troops close to Venezuela.

The spokesperson’s other observations are also significant as she said: “The development of events in Venezuela has come to a critical point, everyone understands this. On 23 February, a dangerous large-scale provocation is set to take place, instigated by the Washington-led crossing of the Venezuelan border with a so-called humanitarian convoy, which may lead to clashes between supporters and opponents, forming a convenient pretext for military action to remove the current legitimate president from government.”

In very-recent past, such acts of provocation are many – beginning from Latin America to Asia, from Nicaragua to Syria.

Within the last few days, air force planes from at least two countries – the United States and Brazil – already landed in areas bordering Venezuela. The planes, it was told, carried materials claiming to be of humanitarian nature. 

But, the question comes: Why not hand over the material claimed to be of humanitarian nature to the constitutionally defined party – the government of Maduro. Have not other countries including Cuba, Russia and China done so?

Unusual movement of air force/military planes of a major country involved in the act of intervention in Venezuela have been reported by Cuba. A president of one country publicly suggested armed forces of another country to revolt against a democratically elected government. A lawmaker of Venezuela also made similar call. How many similar examples are there in the modern day-world? Shall any sovereign country keep its eyes close to such acts of provocation?

Memories of the (in) famous White Helmets in Syria are fresh in the public mind. Still fresh is the incident in a small Syrian town that saw flaring up of a small protest into armed clashes. Public mind has not forgotten the tact with which clashes was incited and organised in a Libyan town. The public mind has not forgotten the concocted story of Saddam Husain’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, the drama with a vial at the United Nations, which were totally false and fake. All these stories were organised, fabricated in the house of imperialism, and the mainstream media, essentially imperialist media in today’s world, faithfully propagated the stories.

In Venezuela today, the same story is unfolding: An intervention, with possibilities of an armed aggression, a proxy war, and, acts of provocation for initiating the planned proxy war or armed aggression. Therefore, the Venezuelan border area has been soaked with blood through an act of provocation.

Now, it depends on the Venezuelan people, and people around the world to expose these acts of provocation by imperialism, and stand in solidarity in the struggle against imperialist intervention.

*Farooque Chowdhury writes from Dhaka, Bangladesh.