Between February 6 and 10 of 2019, several military transport aircraft have flown to the Rafael Miranda Airport in Puerto Rico, the San Isidro Air Base in the Dominican Republic, and other strategically located Caribbean Islands, most certainly without the knowledge of the governments of those nations. These flights took off from U.S. military facilities where Special Operation Troops and U.S. Marine Corps units operate. These units have been used for covert operations, even against leaders of other countries.
[T]he U.S. intends to fabricate a humanitarian pretext in order to launch a military attack on Venezuela and, by resorting to intimidation, pressure, and force, is seeking to introduce into this sovereign nation's territory alleged humanitarian aid... It is obvious that the United States is paving the way to forcibly establish a humanitarian corridor under international supervision, invoke the obligation to protect civilians, and take all necessary steps. It is worth recalling that similar behaviors and pretexts were used to by the U.S. during the prelude to wars it launched against Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, which resulted in tremendous human losses and caused enormous suffering.
http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2019-02-14/us-military-adventure-against-venezuela-must-be-stopped
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Following the closed-door, Feb. 4th meeting of the Lima Group in Ottawa, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland was holding a press conference to issue “the Ottawa Declaration for Venezuela” when suddenly protestors swarmed in front of her podium, unfurled a banner and began chanting “Hands off Venezuela!”
As security guards removed the protestors, Freeland deftly moved off-script to say that the Lima Group’s plans for Venezuela would uphold “the kind of democracy which political protestors in Canada do enjoy and I’m sad to say that political protestors in Venezuela do not.”
It was a bizarre statement for a variety of reasons – including the recent RCMP arrests of 14 peaceful land and water-protectors in Indigenous territory in B.C. – but especially because Freeland’s words coincided (but conflicted) with current mainstream media claims of massive protest marches taking place in Venezuela against president Nicolas Maduro and in favour of opposition figure Juan Guaido, who emerged from obscurity to declare himself interim president on January 23.
Canada’s “Liberal Hawk”
In Canada, Freeland has become known for such hyperbole. For example, in April 2018 when Canada expelled four Russian diplomats, Freeland said that the decision resulted in part from Russia’s attempts “to interfere in our democracy.” But as the Toronto Star’s Thomas Walkom has stated, “Moscow’s sin then was to publicize the uncontested fact – also reported in the Star and Globe and Mail – that Freeland’s maternal grandfather had been a Nazi collaborator during the Second World War.” [1]
Adamantly anti-Russia, Freeland has become the Trudeau government’s “most articulate liberal hawk,” even declaring that Canadians must be prepared to go to war as the New Cold War heats up. [2]At the Feb. 4th press conference, Freeland’s hyperbole neatly meshed with hypocrisy when she stated that “she opposed a coup but wanted the Venezuelan military to depose current president [Nicolas] Maduro and install the unelected U.S. dauphin, Juan Guaido.” [3]
Of course, some other Lima Group members have their own hypocrisy to answer for.
When it came to signing the Ottawa communiqué, Guayana and St. Lucia refused to sign, as did Mexico, which did not attend the February 4th meeting and has dropped out of the Lima Group. So that left 11 members – Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay and Peru – who signed the Ottawa Declaration.
As professors John Kirk and Stephen Kimber have noted, some of these members “are being willfully hypocritical in their moralizing … Guatemala’s President, Jimmy Morales, dismantled a United Nations anti-corruption group and barred its head from entering the country. Honduras’ President, Juan Orlando Hernandez, took power in 2014 after a dubious election and violent crackdown on dissent, then ignored his country’s constitution to win re-election in 2017. Brazil’s new President, Jair Bolsonaro, has not only publicly attacked women, gay people, immigrants and people of colour, he has also expressed support for torture and his country’s military dictatorship. Colombia has witnessed the execution of 120 human-rights leaders in the past two years. Is Ms. Freeland promoting democracy in those countries? And what does it say about Canada that these are our fellow travellers?” [4]
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/13/canada-vs-venezuela-the-murky-background/ (long, detailed, citations included)
