[rad-green] Brazil’s far-right government backe d terror plot against Venezuela, top newspaper reveals

*https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/17/brazil-paper-reveals-bolsonaro-terror-plot-venezuela/
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/17/brazil-paper-reveals-bolsonaro-terror-plot-venezuela/>*


*Grayzone                    January 17, 2020*

[image: Venezuela Brazil attack Bolsonaro Guaido coup]

Brazil’s far-right government backed terror plot against Venezuela, top
newspaper reveals
Brazil’s extreme Bolsonaro government backed an attack on Venezuela in a
plot to overthrow its elected president. The shocking terror operation has
received no coverage in mainstream US media.By Ben Norton

Brazil’s far-right government helped support military attacks on Venezuela
in hopes of inciting a coup and violently overthrowing the country’s
leftist government.

This plan was revealed by a major pro-government newspaper in Brazil. And
yet the shocking story was not covered by any mainstream paper in the US or
Europe. Outside a lone report by Venezuela’s state-backed  teleSUR
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Brazil-Complicit-in-Attacks-on-Venezuela-Military-Base-O-Globo-20200102-0010.html>
—
which Washington-backed coup plotters are now trying to usurp
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Juan-Guaido-Wants-to-Silence-teleSUR-by-Taking-Over-TV-Signal-20200112-0001.html>
–
the story was completely ignored in Anglophone media.

The United States has supported a series of coup attempts against
Venezuela’s elected government since 2002, which accelerated in 2019
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/01/top-20-the-grayzone-stories-of-2019/>.
But the details of Brazil’s role in the latest plot is a novel revelation.

On December 31, the Brazilian newspaper O Globo disclosed the putsch plans
in an article titled “Attack on barracks by soldiers who took refuge in
Brazil was part of larger plan against Maduro
<https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/ataque-quartel-por-militares-que-se-refugiaram-no-brasil-era-parte-de-plano-maior-contra-maduro-24165689>.”
The subtitle added, “Deserters intended to initiate large-scale military
uprising, but failed.”

O Globo is one of Brazil’s most widely circulated outlets. It has a staunch
right-wing editorial line and is infamous for supporting Brazil’s fascist
military dictatorship between the 1960s and ’80s.

The paper maintains close ties to Brazil’s political and military
establishment. And it consulted with numerous sources to reconstruct the
plans for the latest attacks on Venezuela.
Trilogy: 3 planned attacks on Venezuela, with help from foreign countries

With the support of neighboring right-wing countries, Venezuelan military
defectors planned to launch three military uprisings against the Venezuelan
government on or around Christmas Eve, according to O Globo.

The official name of the operation was Trilogia (Trilogy). One attack
targeted Venezuela’s Bolívar state on the southeastern border with Brazil;
a second attack was planned as an amphibious invasion; and a third was to
take place near Colombia’s border.

Two of these three planned attacks failed, as only one of the groups
carried out the orders as planned.

Brazil-backed insurgents crossed into Venezuelan territory and, on December
22, attacked the 513 Selva Mariano Montilla infantry battalion in
Venezuela’s Bolívar state, located roughly 230 kilometers from Brazil’s
northern-most state Roraima, near the border of the two countries.

A total of 16 Venezuelan military deserters participated in the attack on
the Mariano Montilla barracks, killing a Venezuelan soldier and wounding
another.

They stole weapons, including 112 rifles, 120 grenades, three rocket
launchers, three machine guns, 10, bazookas, and 10 ammunition boxes,
according to another O Globo report
<https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/ministro-acusa-brasil-de-envolvimento-em-ataques-bases-militares-na-venezuela-24154923>
.

In a parallel operation, Brazil-backed insurgents also attacked soldiers in
the Venezuelan city of Santa Elena, near the border. But this operation
ultimately failed.

Unnamed sources told O Globo the ultimate goal of the operation was to
build a more heavily armed “superior force” to carry out larger and larger
attacks against Venezuela’s government, kicking off a protracted violent
insurgency in southern Venezuela, on the border area with Brazil.
Brazil’s, and Guaidó’s, complicity in the attacks

These attacks on Venezuela had the backing of Brazil’s far-right
government, led by President Jair Bolsonaro, a fascistic demagogue who came
to power following a US-backed parliamentary and legal coup that forced
Brazil’s center-left Workers’ Party from power.

Bolsonaro has pledged to purge, imprison, and exile leftists
<https://theconversation.com/bolsonaro-wins-brazil-election-promises-to-purge-leftists-from-country-105481>,
and has staunchly defended his country’s previous military dictatorship,
while heaping praise on the murderous junta of US-backed Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet <https://apnews.com/3506a62c508e43dcb9687866687c9a8c>.

Before and after the attacks on Venezuela, according to O Globo, there were
“high-level communications” between Brazil’s Foreign Ministry and the coup
regime of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

Guaidó, who the United States has been trying to forcibly install as the
head of state of Venezuela, had been recognized by Bolsonaro as the
supposed “president” of the country although he was never elected to the
position.

Guaidó and Bolsonaro have met and publicly demanded the ouster of
Venezuela’s elected, UN-recognized  President Nicolás Maduro
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/06/interview-venezuelan-president-nicolas-maduro/>
.

According to O Globo, most of the coup-plotters who participated in the
botched military uprising hid in Venezuela. Many were subsequently arrested.

Yet five of the insurgents crossed back over into Brazil and hid for
several days among the Taurepang indigenous community in Roraima state.
Members of this community informed the Brazilian government, which then
decided to rescue and officially grant refuge to the Venezuelan defectors
on December 26.

O Globo noted that Venezuela’s foreign-backed right-wing opposition
expressed “relief” at Bolsonaro’s decision to protect the Venezuelan
soldiers who had carried out a violent attack on their homeland.

Venezuela’s actual government, on the other hand, harshly condemned the
Bolsonaro administration for its decision to legally protect the
coup-plotters, stating that it was “setting a dangerous precedent of
protection for people who committed flagrant offenses against peace and the
stability of another state.”

Venezuela has formally requested the extradition
<https://twitter.com/TarekWiliamSaab/status/1212816087433318400> of the
five defectors protected by Brazil, but the far-right Bolsonaro
administration has dismissed Caracas’ requests
<https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/governo-brasileiro-vai-ignorar-pedido-de-nicolas-maduro-para-entregar-suspeitos-de-atacar-bases-militares-24157232>
on
the grounds that it does not recognize Maduro’s legitimacy.
Brazilian media confirms what Venezuelan government said

The O Globo report confirms public statements by Venezuelan government
officials after the December 22 attack.

Venezuela’s communication minister, Jorge Rodríguez, declared that the
defectors not only had support from the government of Bolsonaro, but were
also trained in paramilitary camps in Colombia.

The Venezuelan intelligence services tracked the infiltrators’ movements
from Brazil, through Peru, and into the Colombian city of Cali, where they
received training.

Venezuela’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, wrote, “From Peru they enter
Colombia and they receive support also from Brazil. This is a
coup-mongering strategy of triangulation by the governments of the Lima
Cartel
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/07/05/canada-adopts-america-first-foreign-policy-us-state-department-chrystia-freeland/>
to
produce violence, death, and destabilization in Venezuela.”

The coup plotters also entangled local indigenous communities in their
violent operations, recruiting accomplices from the native groups on the
border area between Venezuela and Brazil.

Nine members of the local Venezuelan indigenous community were involved in
the attacks, according to O Globo, and all were arrested for their role in
the botched coup attempt.

Tensions between Venezuela and Brazil remain at a boiling point. However,
Maduro has hesitated to sever all ties with the powerful neighbor in order
to preserve trade between the countries.

Unilateral US sanctions on Venezuela have already killed tens of thousands
of civilians
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/11/life-resistance-venezuela-ben-norton-us-blockade/>
and
made it difficult to import food into the country. Venezuela still relies
on food from Brazil’s massive agricultural sector to help feed communities
near the border. The imports are especially important as Washington
attempts to sanction Caracas’ CLAP food distribution program, which feeds
seven million families.

Venezuela’s government has managed to fend off the violent infiltration and
subterfuge by its powerful neighbor. But thanks to a media blackout, the
plot remains unknown to almost everyone in the US, except perhaps to those
who helped hatch it.

*Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant
editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels
<http://moderaterebelsradio.com/> podcast, which he co-hosts with editor
Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com <http://bennorton.com/> and he
tweets at @BenjaminNorton <https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton>.*

-- 

--- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sid-l" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sid-l/CACKppcwrbK2p25Q6uwhAeGCTV8LVRf-puoJ4sfzK9HYqnbFrag%40mail.gmail.com.

---
To unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]>
List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>