by Nil Nikandrov
20 May 2014

from VoltaireNetwork Website

 

 

 

 

 

For several months, U.S. intelligence services have ramped up their efforts to destabilize Venezuela.

 

Protests circumscribed to a few neighborhoods have been widely relayed by the media to give the impression that they engulf the entire country.

 

However, there are growing signs that Washington’s hand behind these strange events.

 

 

 

 

 

After the victory of Hugo Chavez’ successor Nicolas Maduro in the 2013 presidential election, the CIA tried to use a modernized version of the Chilean scenario to overthrow him.

 

Forty years ago that scenario worked:

in September 1973 the government of Salvador Allende was literally destroyed.

 

A repressive fascist dictatorship took hold in Chile for many years, and Allende’s supporters became their victims. Tens of thousands of Chileans passed through torture centers and concentration camps.

 

Many were forced to emigrate, but even abroad they did not feel safe. Pinochet’s secret police hunted down significant figures in the resistance and used poison and explosives to eliminate them.

In Venezuela the Chilean scenario did not work.

 

The conspirators, following the instructions of their overseers from the CIA, planned to provoke mass discontent. They tried everything: an artificial shortage of staple commodities, sabotage on public transportation, attacks on government agencies, and barricading of major highways and roads to residential areas.

 

Everywhere over the cities - as an alarming sign of instability - there hung black smoke from burning tires (an eloquent echo of the Kiev Maidan)… All of this was synchronized and well organized.

 

Nicolas Maduro and the Bolivarian government stood fast. And President Obama, who has suffered defeat on practically all fronts in the fight for U.S. hegemony, has authorized the toughening of operations for influencing the Bolivarian regime…

In the city of San Cristobal, Venezuela, U.S. citizen T.М. Leininger was arrested. He had seriously wounded a Venezuelan whom he suspected of working for Bolivarian security agencies; he tried to hide, but was detained by the police.

 

When Leininger’s apartment was searched, they found a secret cache of firearms: three rifles (one with a telescopic sight and a silencer), two pistols, a sizeable ammunition stockpile and several suits of camouflage. The American was suspected of planning terrorist acts.

 

An investigation is now in progress, and the facts of the use of these weapons by militant groups of the radical opposition are being established.

At the direction of the CIA, a media campaign was launched in defense of the failed agent. Supposedly he came to Venezuela for humanitarian reasons; he brought food to poverty-stricken relatives.

 

They say that Leininger is by nature not inclined to violence and risky undertakings, to say nothing of using weapons. If something of the sort did take place, it was only because Leininger is "not completely well and has a persecution mania".

 

This last theory, which supposedly came from his mother, is meant to explain why weapons were found in the American’s possession.

It is telling that in recent times Venezuelan security agencies have detained at least 60 foreigners with weapons and, as a rule, in the regions of the country which are being considered by the CIA as promising areas for the creation of hot spots.

 

According to investigators, the CIA recruits terrorists from around the world to work in Venezuela.

 

Venezuelan security agencies have been receiving information about the activities of CIA stations in Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and several other countries in transferring "controlled" fighters from drug cartels to Venezuela. It is sufficient to mention that some of the barricades in the period of the most intense uprisings of the radical opposition were controlled by Colombian narcotraficantes who are wanted by Interpol.

 

Photographs of the criminals among the Venezuelan opposition activists made their way onto the Internet. However, in such situations CIA agents have immunity in spite of the authority of Interpol and the norms of international law.

In practically all large cities in Venezuela, including the capital, shots were heard frequently during the months of anti-government demonstrations.

 

Most of those killed were ordinary citizens. In the first stage of the terrorist operations for overthrowing the regime, the CIA mercenaries deliberately and consistently chose victims on both sides of the barricades (just as on the Kiev Maidan).

 

Their goal was to exacerbate the confrontation between supporters of the government and the opposition. In the practice of American intelligence, "slaughter statistics" are an important aspect of the sabotage war against the country selected for destabilization...

 

In the CIA propaganda campaign, the following thesis prevails:

an upward trend in violent deaths is proof of chaos and the inability of the Venezuelan government to normalize the situation and rein in criminal elements. Venezuelans are especially indignant about the killings of people in art, theater and cinema and the stars of television series.

In April and early May the statistics of attacks on functionaries of the ruling PSUV party and military and law enforcement officers rose abruptly.

 

Firearms were used in practically all these cases. Venezuelan Minister of Internal Affairs Miguel Rodriguez Torres has stated that in the new stage of sabotage operations the CIA has focused on "selective killings".

 

And targets are selected whose violent deaths will have maximal political repercussions:

"Without a doubt, they are trying to implement a secret plan to destabilize the country and overthrow President Nicolas Maduro and the government. For this reason the enemies have resorted to selective killings."

Among the victims was prominent Bolivarian politician Eliezer Otaiza.

 

In the early years of Hugo Chavez’ administration he headed DISIP, the counterintelligence service (now Sebin).

 

Otaiza, who did not use security guards, was ambushed by paramilitares on a deserted road, tortured and then killed by shots in the back. In the opinion of a number of Latin American analysts, Otaiza was secretly organizing resistance groups in Venezuela in case of armed aggression from the U.S.

Several military counterintelligence (DIM) officers in various states throughout the country have been the targets of "selective shootings".

 

DIM agents identify and neutralize enemy agents in military divisions and protect strategically important sites in the country from sabotage. Thanks to the efficient operation of DIM, a group of air force generals who were planning an armed uprising against the government was recently uncovered.

 

The generals were at one time trained in the U.S., and after the victory of the Bolivarian revolution they maintained secret ties with employees of the military attaché office in the American embassy in Caracas.

 

DIM received signals about the activities of the conspiring generals from young officers. Attempts had been made to recruit them for anti-government activities, including organizing the escape of one of the pilots on a Russian-built SU airplane.

Bolivarian law enforcement’s countermeasures against conspirators and terrorists led by the CIA are gradually becoming more and more effective.

 

Sebin employees were able to identify the leadership structure of the conspiracy, record the content of conversations between the Venezuelan conspirators and their overseers from the CIA, and ascertain channels for importing weapons and explosives into the country and sources of financing.

 

In some confiscated laptops they found lists of Chavists slated for elimination.

 

Sebin has cleared opposition tent camps in Caracas which, according to CIA plans, were to be transformed into Venezuelan Maidans. During the operation, large amounts of money, weapons, Molotov cocktails and drugs were found in the tents.

One great success of Sebin was the operation that unmasked an employee on President Maduro’s staff who was linked with the CIA station. She was passing confidential information about the activities and movements of the president and his entourage to the U.S. embassy through a relative.

 

According to Venezuelan political scientists, the CIA could have used this data to prepare an attempt on Nicolas Maduro.