“Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.’ — Frederick Douglass.
“There will come a time when the rich owns all the media, and it will be impossible for the public to make an informed opinion.” — Albert Einstein
There is a counter-revolution on the way in Venezuela. If the government and people lose their nerves and play into the hands of those who believe that ordinary people have no right to freedom, dignity and a better life, things could rapidly get out of hand.
For 25 years, the people of Venezuela have decided to chart a new course. They began this journey with Hugo Chavez, who won a spectacular victory in 1998. The leadership declared they intended to build a 21st-century socialism that would put the people first. For example, the country’s massive resources, especially oil reserves, were used to build up the people. Millions of homes were constructed, and education and health care became free. Many poor Venezuelans testified that it was the first time they were able to see a dentist.
But a law of social development reveals that revolution breeds counter-revolution. The governors of the world, the rich and powerful countries, especially the United States and the European Union, frowned on the Bolivarian experiment. They immediately began to plot. Their initial scheme unfolded between April 11 and 13, 2002. President Chavez was captured and spirited away. The media trumpeted the news that Chavez was overthrown. But the people would have none of it. Millions of Venezuelans took to the streets to demand his release.
Once that attempted coup failed, the Americans and Europeans ramped up the pressures. They decided to make the Venezuelan economy scream. This tried-and-tested policy bore fruits in the early 1970s in Chile. Salvador Allende, a socialist, was elected president in democratically held elections in 1970. The CIA sponsored a campaign of destabilisation and sabotage, bribery and intrigue that resulted in the military assassinating Allende and overthrowing his government. A similar smear and destabilisation policy was carried out against Michael Manley’s government in Jamaica between 1972 and 1980 and the People’s Revolutionary government of Maurice Bishop after the revolution triumphed in 1979.
These powerful governments employed illegal sanctions and denied credit and financial assistance through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and private lending agencies. With the denial of loans and credit and the intensification of sanctions, the government is unable to carry on with its programme of development. People become deprived, and the very people whom the government’s policies are intended to help become frustrated, intimidated, tired and even fed up with the daily grind of living. They may not necessarily become opposed to their leaders. They just want to ease the pressure.
Another strand of the counter-revolutionary plan is finding willing surrogates to act as opposition elements. These people are immediately hailed as heroes by the mainstream media. Their every word is gospel. Take the opposition figure, Maria Carina Machado. The media tells us that she was denied an opportunity to contest the elections. It never says why. But the constitutional court of Venezuela blocked her from contesting because she took the seat of a foreign government, Panama, at the meeting of the Organisation of American States and called for the military overthrow of the Venezuelan government. For context, try going to any foreign capital and call for the military overthrow of the U.S. or any European government.
Take further Ms Machado’s claim that the opposition has proof that they won 70% of the votes. Sceptics across the Americas and the world are asking the Venezuelan government to verify the vote count. Let them show their proof. The Government said that their electoral system was hacked, preventing the completion of the count. They identified the source of the hacking. Many brilliant computer and electronics technologists can verify this claim.
But those questioning the election results have no desire to verify them. The Western leaders want to stir uncertainty and manufacture doubt. Even before the elections, they claimed that they would be unfair.
For the third time in 11 years, President Maduro has gone to the polls and won. Another noteworthy fact is that since 1998, when President Chavez came to power, the government has gone to the polls 33 times, and it has won 31 of those contests. It lost the 2007 referendum and the 2015 parliamentary elections. On both occasions, it accepted the results. On the contrary, the US and EU governments and their surrogates in Caracas only accept election results when those they bankroll and support win.
The Western leaders and their backers underestimated President Maduro’s strategic, tactical, and leadership skills. They derisively dismiss him as a bus driver. They unjustly smear him with drug trafficking charges. They are intent on removing him from power by legal or illegal means.
We saw this tactic unfold in Brazil in 2018. There are military coups and constitutional coups. The current president, Lula Da Silva, was jailed on trumped-up charges to prevent him from contesting an election in which polls showed he was the clear front-runner. That plot allowed ultra-conservative Jair Balsanaro to win the presidency. It has since been revealed that the U.S. intelligence agencies worked closely with the prosecutors to subvert Brazilian democracy.
We can expect the powerful to turn up the pressure on the Venezuelan leadership. They will punish the people for voting yet again for revolution and change. They will plot and scheme until they get their nefarious way.
In this fight for freedom, development and progressive transformation, people must be reminded that freedom ain’t free.
