The Final Call

Activists ‘protect’ embassy in bid to stop U.S. coup in Venezuela

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Venezuela embassy in Washington has been occupied by a Protection Coalition representing the legal Maduro government for nearly a month, surrounded by a handful of pro-coup demonstrators who block food from entering. Photo: Twitter

“Yesterday we were in jail for protecting the U.S. embassy,” Kevin Zeese, one of the four arrestees said via social media after their release on May 17. “Today we continue to work to build the U.S. movement acting in solidarity with the Venezuelan people to stop the U.S. coup. This coup will fail.”

They insist their struggle continues, and despite the arrests, the group is hoping for a victory, in the form of a negotiated “Protecting Power Agreement,” a diplomatic solution used in 29 instances around the world where a neutral, third party country agrees to control an embassy and handle the government functions between belligerent countries. So far, the U.S. has not illegally turned the Venezuelan embassy over to opposition forces, and appears to be negotiating with the government of Turkey to represent Venezuela.

Those arrested and two dozen others who left the embassy days before the arrest, after a tumultuous 37 day occupancy, called actions by U.S. authorities “an act of piracy.” Agents with the Diplomatic Security Service carried out the arrests, charging the protestors’ “refusal to leave the Venezuelan Embassy interfered with the Department of State’s protective service of maintaining the security of the Venezuelan Embassy and the Permanent Mission of Venezuela to the Organization of American States.”

Members of the Embassy Protection Collective disagree, insisting they were in the building at the invitation of the rightful, UN recognized Venezuelan government. “This act of piracy in D.C. is unprecedented,” said Brian Becker of the anti-war ANSWER Coalition. “It will have a cascading impact and blowback on the empire. Bolton and Pompeo demonstrate unrestrained hubris. Because they enjoy the support of American liberals, however, they feel secure. Still, they will fail,” he continued. He was referring to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, who have led the charge against the Venezuelan government.

The Embassy Protection Collective was formed prior to a failed, U.S. inspired uprising in Caracas in late April. Following that unsuccessful attempt at regime change, a mob backing the U.S. supported opposition, formed outside the embassy. The opposition is led by Venezuelan congressional leader Juan Guaidó, who never received a single vote in the recent presidential election.

After nearly two weeks of a violent siege around the embassy by supporters of Mr. Guaidó who were clearly enabled by U.S. Secret Service and Metropolitan Police Department officers on the scene, authorities cut off water and electricity to the compound, then in a surprise gesture permitted the Rev. Jesse Jackson to deliver food to the protectors, said demonstrators. The next day the four were arrested.

“We have a role to play,” the Rev. Jackson said at a rally outside the fallen embassy two days later, May 19. Then he led the crowd in a chant. “We choose, negotiation, over confrontation,” they repeated. “We choose, the bargaining table, over the battlefield.”

But the Trump administration seems intent on installing a government that’s friendly to U.S. policy, and it’s a serious matter, according to constitutional lawyer Mara Verhayden-Hilliard. “So as a matter of international law and domestic law, the decision to violate the inviolability requirements of diplomatic missions is a huge step and a very dangerous step,” she said in an interview.

“The U.S. is waging a war,” said Ms. Verhayden-Hilliard. “Sanctions are an act of war. The U.S. is actually strangling the country in order to force regime change. The U.S. is killing Venezuelans. We’re standing up for peace.”

“We are seeing a repeat of what happened in Iraq with lies, misinterpretations not only being put out by this administration, but being echoed by the mainstream media,” CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin said via social media. “This is a direct provocation that would normally result in a reciprocal move on the part of the Maduro administration, which would be taking over the U.S. embassy (in Caracas). The U.S. could see that as an act of war, and use it as a justification of U.S. military intervention.”

The irony, according to Mr. Zeese, is that: “These countries pose ZERO threat to the people of the U.S., but they do not bow down to the U.S. Empire, so naturally they are vilified and threatened.”

In fact, this is precisely what the U.S. is attempting to do in Venezuela. “There are people starving in Venezuela,” the Rev. Jackson said of crippling sanctions imposed by the U.S. “That’s because we cut the food off. We are trying to choke them into submission,” he told a group supporting the Embassy Protection Collective.

“The sanctions that have been imposed against the government of Venezuela have, by, the most recent research reports, killed 40,000 Venezuelans,” said attorney Verhayden-Hilliard. “So while some newspapers are writing articles about Venezuela suffering the most devastating humanitarian disaster outside of war that’s ever been seen, well, it’s not outside of war,” she continued.

U.S. sanctions constitute war on Venezuela, she said.

On May 21, CODEPINK members took their protest away from the seized embassy to the home of the president’s National Security Adviser in nearby Montgomery County, Md., where they held banners and chanted “war criminal.”

“We are reviving the anti-war movement!” CODEPINK declared. “We will resist U.S. aggression against #Venezuela, #Iran, and all other nations on the U.S. empire’s hit list!”

“We are here, working to preserve the government, the legitimate government of Venezuela,” Col. Ann Wright, a retired Army officer and member of Veterans for Peace, who quit her job as an ambassador in 2003 to protest Pres. George W. Bush’s war on Iraq, told The Final Call outside the embassy.