Les Blough
Axis of Logic in Venezuela

Today, most of the world knows about the US led war on Venezuelan democracy, economy and sovereignty that began with a direct assault a couple of weeks ago when the US refused to acknowledge our President Nicholas Maduro, elected last May by an overwhelming majority of the voters while attempting to install Juan Guaido as self-declared, unelected president of Venezuela. Several European countries and some right-wing governments in Latin America followed in lock-step with the US; many countries throughout the world however continue to support Maduro as president. Until this openly belligerent act by the US, Guaido was a deputy who won his seat in the National Assembly with only 26 percent of the vote and known only by 1 out of 5 Venezuelans, mainly for his participation in the deadly guarimbas in 2014 and 2017. As a member or the outlawed National Assembly* and the opposition’s most violent political party, Voluntad Popular** he was trained by the CIA in the US and Europe along with 6 others in tactics for destabilization and regime change.

The US declared 23 February as the day that “humanitarian aid” now warehoused on the Colombian side of our border, will be forced across the border from Colombia backed by the US military using civilians as human shields. The Maduro government and military is blocking entry of this “humanitarian aid” on our side of the border as the US has a long history of using this means to invade other countries and on numerous occasions their “humanitarian aid” containers have contained arms as a Trojan horse for the US funded rebels to foment civil war and overthrow governments. Again, more details about this are published on Axis of Logic and there’s no point in repeating them in my report today.

22 February: My friend of many years, a university professor and I were planning to take the 10 hour road trip in my car today to the Colombian border to witness for ourselves what’s about to pass today, tomorrow and Sunday but we learned late last night that a tunnel on the autopista near Valencia about 2 hours west of here was blocked by the opposition. Deputies (congressmen) from the opposition the political party, Voluntad Popular (Popular Will),* members of the defunct National Assembly** are present at the blocked tunnel.

So this morning my friend and I decided the better part of wisdom was to cancel our trip. For any uninformed reader’s perspective, the autopista is comparable to a 4 lane interstate highway, crossing the country east and west. It’s the only viable route between Caracas and the Colombian border. Thus blocking it prevents wheeled movements of troops and military equipment from traveling from Caracas or the biggest military base in Maracay to go the the frontier. So the reader may logically wonder why the government doesn’t simply move these people out and open the tunnel. Again, the reader may ask but surely the Venezuelan military has the force necessary to remove these people. Certainly it does but during this coup attempt blocking the tunnel amounts to a military tactic by an armed element of the opposition with a history of violence designed to create a confrontation with the Venezuelan military and the US is itching for such action which could at least result in a battle that would produce dead and injured to ignite what would be billed a the onset of civil war with accusations of a “dictator” cracking down on civil disobedience. More about that below [. . .]

via From the Ground in Venezuela, 22 February 2019