Boston and Venezuela, Terrorism There and Here

[eridani]

http://www.zcommunications.org/boston-and-venezuela-terrorism-there-and-here-by-james-petras

The candidate of the U.S.-backed opposition, Henrique Capriles has lived up to his reputation for violent politics. In the run-up to his failed candidacy in the Venezuelan presidential election on April 15, his followers sabotaged power lines, causing frequent national blackouts. His supporters among the elite hoarded basic consumer items, causing shortages, and repeatedly threatened violence if the election went against them. With over 100 international observers from the United Nations, European Commission, and the Jimmy Carter Center there to certify the Venezuelan elections, Capriles and his inner circle unleashed their street gangs, who proceeded to target Socialist voters, campaign workers, health clinics, newly-built low-income housing projects, and Cuban doctors and nurses.

The “white terror” resulted in 8 deaths and 70 injuries. Over 135 right- wing street thugs were arrested and 90 were charged with felonies, conspiracy to commit murder and destroying public property. Capriles’s violent political credentials go back at least a decade when he played a major role in the bloody coup which briefly overthrew President Hugo Chavez in 2002. Capriles then led a gang of armed thugs in an assault on the Cuban embassy, “arresting” legitimate cabinet ministers who had taken refuge. After a combined military and popular mass movement restored President Chavez, Capriles was placed under arrest for violence and treason. The Venezuelan Attorney General, Danilo Anderson, was in the process of prosecuting Capriles and several hundred of his terrorist supporters when he was assassinated by a car bomb planted by supporters of the failed coup.

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When the Venezuelan oppositionist terrorists launched their assault on citizens and public institutions, they were given unconditional support by the Obama regime, which claimed the killers were really “democrats seeking to uphold free election.” Secretary of State Kerry even refused to recognize the electoral victory of President Maduro. In response, the Venezuelan government did not declare martial law: at most the National Guard and loyalist police upheld the law and arrested several dozen protestors and terrorists (many of the former not directly linked to violence were quickly released). Moreover, despite the internationally certified elections by over 100 observers, the Maduro government conceded the chief demand for an electoral recount in the hope of averting further right-wing bloodshed.

All the major Western news agencies, including the “respectable” print media (Financial Times, New York Times, and Washington Post) converted the Venezuelan political assassins into “peaceful protestors” who were victimized for attempting to register their dissent. In other words, Washington and the entire media came out in favor of political terror perpetrated against an adversarial democratic government, while invoking a near-martial law for a brutal, but limited, act of terror in the U.S.