The unrepentant war criminal Elliot Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was last month appointed by Trump as Special Representative for Venezuela. Abrams, who has a long history of support for murderous dictators across Latin America, is perhaps best known for his conviction over the Iran-Contra arms smuggling scandal that armed death squads in Nicaragua, when he was subsequently found guilty of giving false testimony to Congress. As The New York Times reported at the time:
Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams has defended his role in authorizing the shipment of weapons on a humanitarian aid flight to Nicaraguan rebels, saying the operation was “strictly by the book.”
Mr. Abrams spoke at a news conference Saturday in response to statements by Robert Duemling, former head of the State Department’s Nicaraguan humanitarian assistance office, who said he had twice ordered planes to shuttle weapons for the contras on aid planes at Mr. Abrams’s direction in early 1986. 1
Investigative reporter Whitney Webb highlights the incident in an excellent piece published by Mint Press News last week, in which she draws parallels with today’s shipments of “aid” to Venezuela. She writes:
The parallels between aspects of the Contra scandal and the current situation in Venezuela are striking, particularly given the recent “outrage” voiced by mainstream media and prominent U.S. politicians over Maduro’s refusal to allow U.S. “humanitarian aid” into the country. Maduro had explained his rejection of the aid as partially stemming from the concern that it could contain weapons or other supplies aimed at creating an armed opposition force, like the “rebel” force that was armed by the CIA in Syria in 2011.
Though the media has written off Maduro’s concern as unfounded, that is hardly the case in light of the fact that the Trump administration’s recently named special envoy in charge of the administration’s Venezuela policy, Elliott Abrams, had been instrumental in delivering weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras, including hiding those weapons in “humanitarian aid” shipments. In subsequent testimony after the scandal broke in the 1980s, Abrams himself admitted to funneling weapons to the Contras in exactly this way.
Moreover, in the same piece, Webb points to direct evidence of CIA ties to a more recent covert arms smuggling operation:
Last Tuesday, Venezuelan authorities announced that 19 rifles, 118 ammo magazines, 90 radios and six iPhones had been smuggled into the country via a U.S. plane that had originated in Miami. The authorities blamed the United States government for the illicit cargo, accusing it of seeking to arm U.S.-funded opposition groups in the country in order to topple the current Maduro-led government. […]
Publicly available flight radar information shows that the plane, although it has not returned to Venezuela since the discovery of its illicit cargo, has continued to travel to Medellin, Colombia, as recently as this past Monday.
In addition to the dramatic and abrupt change in flight patterns that occurred just weeks before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence prompted Venezuelan opposition member Juan Guaidó to declare himself “interim president,” a subsequent McClatchy follow-up investigation also uncovered the fact that two top executives at the company that owns the plane in question had previously worked with a company connected to controversial CIA “black sites.” 2
Click here to read the full article entitled “US Air Freight Company that Smuggled Weapons Into Venezuela Linked to CIA ‘Black Site’ Renditions” written by Whitney Webb, published on Wednesday 13th.
If Washington is genuinely concerned to provide humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people then the best and most straightforward course of action would be to lift the sanctions that have been crippling its economy. Meanwhile, although barely reported upon, Venezuela is in fact accepting aid from international partners:
Twenty-five million euros-worth of humanitarian aid was delivered to Puerto de la Guaira, Venezuela from international partners in Cuba, China, Russia, Palestine, Turkey, among others.
Over 22,570 units of spare parts for medical equipment, 192,000 kit for diagnostic tests and “more than 100,000 kit for cytology” were included in the shipment, which Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said is received regularly in the port city.3
Click here to read more in a report by Telesur entitled “Venezuela Receives 933 Tons of Medical Aid From Allies Abroad” published on Thursday 14th.
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Additional: the coup in Venezuela explained by Aaron Bastani
As crisis engulfs Venezuela, Aaron Bastani looks at the political and economic history of the country since Hugo Chavez won power in 1998. His conclusion? That sanctions and oil prices are to blame for the country’s economic plight, while it boasts a far greater tradition of democracy than critics often realise let alone dare to admit:
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1 From an article entitled “Abrams Denies Wrongdoing In Shipping Arms to Contras” published by The New York Times on August 17, 1987 and available in the print archive. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/17/world/abrams-denies-wrongdoing-in-shipping-arms-to-contras.html
2 From an article entitled “US Air Frieght Company that Smuggled Weapons Into Venezuela Linked to CIA “Black Site” Renditions” written by Whitney Webb, published in Mint Press News on February 13, 2019. https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-company-that-smuggled-weapons-into-venezuela-linked-to-cia-renditions/255049/
3 From an article entitled “Venezuela Receives 933 Tons of Medical Aid From Allies Abroad” published on February 14, 2019. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuela-Receives-933-Tons-of-Medical-Aid-From-Allies-Abroad-20190214-0025.html
wall of controversy 