12-03-05, 8:58 am
'THE United States is simply not responsible for everything that occurs in Venezuela,' says William Brownfield, Washington's ambassador to Caracas.
This is the standard line that US diplomats trot out when they are in the frame over attempts to destabilise progressive governments.
No-one should fall for it in light of Washington's well-documented machinations against efforts by other countries in the region to assert their independence.
Washington's fingerprints were also over the earlier general strike/lockout which was intended to force out the president by starving the economy of oil income.
The perpetrators of both traitorous acts were welcomed into the US as refugees from a supposedly repressive regime.
What kind of dictatorship allows all major TV stations to maintain a constant propaganda offensive against the government?
Venezuela does not use its armed forces against the people. Nor does it lock people up without charge.
Those were the methods used by the so-called democratic opposition, which sparked violence in the streets and joined military officers in mounting a coup.
It illegally detained the state president before claiming, falsely, that he had resigned and appointing business leader Pedro Carmona as his replacement.
The president was reinstated after working people protested outside military barracks demanding that troops take action to quash the treason being perpetrated by some of the top brass.
This 'people power' invested the Venezuelan people with great confidence that they can be the masters of their own destiny rather than the pawns of big business and US imperialism.
The Bolivarian revolution, with its distinctive feature of grassroots activity and mass participation, has isolated the oligarchy and its hangers-on.
The right-wing counter-revolutionary parties and the discredited CTV trade union federation have been exposed as the creatures of the superpower.
This was laid bare by Washington's comments during and after the coup. President Bush said that his Venezuelan counterpart had brought it upon himself and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice lectured President Chavez on learning appropriate lessons from his brief overthrow.
Venezuelans have learned that a vote for the opposition parties is a vote for imperialism and they don't want it.
Washington has told its Venezuelan lackeys to pull out of elections that they can't win so that the imperialist news agencies can spread allegations about Bolivarian revolutionary repression.
Those tricks don't work so well these days, especially since Venezuela and its neighbours set up their own Telesur TV station to counter imperialist lies.
But the fact that such tricks are still being pulled emphasises the need to step up solidarity with Venezuela.
From Morning Star
