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Venezuela’s Most Prominent Opposition Figure; Fake Alert of Venezuelan Crisis
The Making of Leopoldo López: An Investigation into Venezuela’s Most Prominent Opposition Figure. President Nicolás Maduro dismisses him as a criminal. But López’s supporters call him a political prisoner and accuse Maduro of silencing a dissenting voice.
Humanitarian Crisis Looming Over Venezuela, Says ICG. A Brussels-based think-tank has warned Venezuela of an impending humanitarian calamity in tandem with growing political instability. [However, note: Complicity of the International Crisis Group. On the face of it, the ICG represents a particularly successful NGO incursion into geopolitical affairs. Half of its annual budget of $16m comes from governments—mainly NATO members, including the us and Britain—while corporate donors include RBS, Chevron and BHP Billiton; billionaire financier George Soros is a leading patron. Outgoing president Gareth Evans was the West’s principal apologist for Suharto in East Timor while Australian foreign minister. Co-chair Thomas Pickering was a Reagan point man in Central America’s dirty wars, as us ambassador to El Salvador and one-time intermediary for Contra gunrunners. (This would become a habit: in retirement Pickering sold arms overseas for Boeing.) The Executive Committee includes among its number Mort Abramowitz, self-confessed ‘aggressive interventionist’ and former State Department fire-starter who obtained Stinger missiles for the Afghan Mujahidin; earlier on, while ambassador in Thailand, he had been instrumental in the us policy of backing Pol Pot against the Vietnamese-installed regime. Also featured are stalwart peaceniks Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Advisor; seasoned neocon Ken Adelman; Richard Armitage, Assistant Defense Secretary under Reagan and Deputy Secretary of State under G. W. Bush; retired nato general Wesley Clark, the bomber of Belgrade—alongside foreign friends: the likes of Aleksander Kwas´niewski, Polish promoter of NATO and EU accession. Little wonder that US Secretary of State Colin Powell, attending a 2003 ICG reception in the State Department, found the occasion ‘something of a reunion’.
