The townspeople of Chuao, Venezuela, being honored for their role in the
capture of eight mercenaries.
By
Leonardo Flores
The
latest chapter in the ongoing effort to overthrow the Venezuelan government
reads like a bad spy thriller: a group of mercenaries piloted speedboats from
Colombia to Venezuela; half of them were killed or captured by Venezuelan
security forces immediately upon landing, while the other half – apparently
delayed by mechanical issues with their boat – surrendered to local police and
militia the next day. Thirty-nine attackers have been captured so far, including two
Americans, both former special forces soldiers. Their plan was to capture or kill high-value targets, including
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Instead, it failed miserably and raised
more concerns about the leadership of opposition figure Juan Guaidó.
Guaidó’s
Insidious Contract
Information
about the attack continues to trickle out, yet there is overwhelming evidence
of Guaidó’s involvement. According to multiple sources, Guaidó signed a $212 million contract with Jordan Goudreau, an
ex-Green Beret, for Goudreau’s private security firm to overthrow President
Maduro, although payments were never made. This corroborates an accusation made in late March by Clíver Alcalá, an
opposition-aligned, retired Venezuelan general who surrendered to U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency custody after being indicted for drug trafficking. Copies of
a general services agreement with the signatures of Guaidó and Goudreau have been leaked online, and
the Washington Post reported news of a video call in which
Guaidó says he is “about to sign” the contract. Furthermore, several of the
Venezuelans who took part in the raid have links to Guaidó, including at least
two who participated in the April 30, 2019 coup attempt.
The
paramilitary force that would have resulted from the contract has been
described as similar to the death squads that operated in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala
in the 80’s. This is no exaggeration. The contract explicitly
identifies colectivos as a military target, without ever defining the term. The nebulousness of this term suggests that anyone who
runs afoul of the paramilitaries could be categorized as part of a colectivo.
Leopoldo
López, the founder and leader of Guaidó’s party Voluntad Popular, recently
wrote an opinion piece in El País, Spain’s most important newspaper, in which
he implied that chavismo is a virus like Covid-19. It is not difficult
to see how this sort of rhetoric influenced the contract. Page 11 of the contract’s attachment B authorizes the “on
scene commander” of an operation to lethally target certain civil servants of
institutions – including the Foreign Ministry, Planning Ministry and Youth
Ministry – even in cases that could result in high collateral damage. The
message is clear; anyone close to a chavista can be considered expendable.
The
United States’ role
The
Venezuelan government, which was apparently able to stop the raid after being
tipped off by sources in Colombia, accused the United States of being involved.
The Trump administration has denied any involvement, but there is good reason
to suspect otherwise. Secretary of State Pompeo left open the possibility that
the U.S. knew “who bankrolled” the operation, while refusing to “share any more information about what we know took place.”
Moreover, the Associated Press reported that the DEA had informed Homeland Security of Goudreau’s
plans to smuggle weapons into Colombia. Goudreau met twice with Keith Schiller, a longtime
bodyguard and advisor to President Trump, and worked security at a Trump campaign rally in 2018.
In addition, the Wall Street Journal reported the CIA was aware of the plan.
The plan
involved kidnapping President Maduro, taking control of an airport and flying
him to the United States, ostensibly to collect on the $15 million bounty
offered by the Department of Justice. Had the mercenaries been successful, it
is hard to believe that the Trump administration, with the US Navy floating
right outside Venezuela’s maritime border, would not have seized the
opportunity to grab President Maduro.
Yet
whether the United States government was involved in this particular raid, the
Trump administration has been openly and directly supporting violent regime
change in Venezuela since April 30, 2019. That is the date Guaidó launched his
failed military uprising, in which he tried to take over a Caracas airbase. Had
a few things gone differently that day, Venezuela would be in a civil war.
Guaidó was responsible then and he is responsible now. Additionally, he was educated in Washington, he declared himself “president” because of Washington, he
has bipartisan political support and he receives
U.S. taxpayer money. Given Guaidó’s involvement, it is impossible
for Washington to wash its hands of the plot. The Trump administration is
responsible for giving him what little power he has, and therefore it is
responsible for his actions.
A Growing
Liability
Guaidó
has denied knowledge of the affair, but he is proving to be a liability for the
Trump administration. He has been photographed with members of a drug cartel who
subsequently claimed Guaidó traded favors with them. His team embezzled funds raised from a “humanitarian aid” concert held
in Colombia. He led a failed uprising in April 2019 that was ridiculed around
the world, as it consisted of just a few dozen soldiers. He is using Venezuelan
funds previously frozen in a Citibank account to pay his associates $5,000 a month, while failing to deliver on promises to send Venezuelan doctors
and nurses $100 for their efforts in fighting Covid-19. Now he faces credible
accusations and evidence that he is involved in arms trafficking, financing a
terror plot and planning a potential genocide in Venezuela.
The capture
of two Americans may change the political landscape, as they are poised to
become a point of contention between the Trump and Maduro administrations.
Secretary Pompeo said the United States will “use every tool” to secure the
release of the two Americans, but to date, there is one tool the Trump
administration has never used with regards to Venezuela: dialogue. The
best-case scenario is the handover of the pair to the United States as part of
a deal to begin direct talks between the two governments. The worst-case
scenario is that the Trump administration will perceive them as hostages and
retaliate with military action.
Sensible
politicians could use this event as a catalyst to spur talks within Venezuela
and between Venezuela and the United States. The Puebla Group, a bloc of
progressive Latin American politicians that includes ten former heads of state,
has done just that, issuing a statement which warns that military action would lead
to “geopolitical instability throughout Latin America” and calls for
“democratic dialogue and a peaceful solution” to the conflict.
In the
U.S., Democrats have been almost entirely silent on the matter, with the
exception of a letter by Senators Chris Murphy, Tom Udall and Tim Kaine that
questions the Trump administration’s tactics, but not its strategy or
objectives. Unless Democrats begin to take advantage of the liability Guaidó
represents and push back against Trump’s regime change efforts, there seems to
be little hope of improving U.S. – Venezuela relations, regardless of who wins
the presidency in November.
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