US and Accomplices Left Grasping at Straws – Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

By Francisco Dominguez  –  Sep 8, 2024 

Preparations for the  US-led coup attempt
The people of Venezuela have defeated a high-tech US-led coup. The nation’s electoral authority was able not only to hold election 31st but, despite facing a colossal attack against the nation’s computerised electoral system, it was able to announce the July 28 election results that showed the people of Venezuela, by re-electing President Maduro for the 2025-2031, resulted victorious against, yet another nasty US-run ‘regime change’ push. 

The coup plot involved a massive and sustained, months-long, world corporate media campaign spewing an unusually homogenous message that president Maduro would be electorally defeated, quoting ‘polls’ that gave US-supported, extreme right-wing candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez (fielded by the Unitary Platform coalition, PUD), 80% of the vote. Thus, for instance, on July 20 the FT published Is the game up for Venezuela’s ruling party after 25 years?, stating that “most opinion polls suggest the opposition would crush Maduro by a margin of 20 to 30 points.” The mainstream media repeatedly quoted Maria Corina Machado ‘hoping’ “Nicolas Maduro accepts a negotiation process that allows an orderly and sustainable transition,” intended to persuade readers of the inexorability of Gonzalez’s victory.

The line taken by the world corporate media (including, among many others, The Guardian, El Pais, NYT, Washington Post, Le Monde, France 24, BBC, Corriere de la Sera, and so forth ad nauseam) was pretty much identical in predicting Gonzalez’s victory. Did they know something we didn’t? There is only one centre of power in the world with the might to command the blind obedience of the world corporate media and it is in Washington DC. 

Additionally, for several months previous to the election, Venezuela was subjected to a string of terrorist attacks that targeted food storage facilities but mainly the country’s electricity system with the obvious intention to sufficiently damage it so as to also disable the computerised electoral system. It is almost axiomatic that, every time there is an election in Venezuela, terrorist attacks target the country’s electricity system (as it happened in December 2021, a month after Chavismo massively won the November regional and municipal elections). 

This mainstream media propaganda was spiced up with a campaign of fear (began as early as April 2024) maintaining that in the ‘unlikely event’ of president Maduro winning (contending, only possible by rigging the election), a greater proportion of the population would leave the country, quoting ‘polls’ that asserted that up to 40% of Venezuelans, that is about 12 million people, would leave.

The coup attempt’s key ingredients
The world corporate media terror bombardment was ‘supplemented’ by an extreme right-wing media campaign of vicious hatred and threats not only against Chavistas but also other opposition presidential candidates and their families. For this presidential election the extreme right-wing verbal violence in the social media was already in full swing months before election day and, giving numerous instances of previous verbal and physical violence by them. An article in May 2024, prophesied that:

This scenario of violence, exacerbated by political polarization and hate propaganda, creates a perfect breeding ground for social instability. The possibility of a scenario where violent groups try to sabotage the electoral process and impose their agenda by force is a latent threat that requires forceful measures to protect the peace of the country.

In Venezuela, opposition digital verbal violence always around elections they lose, has in the past 25 years unavoidably led to wanton physical violence, including burning people alive, and the murdering many: about 20 in their 2002 failed coup, 11 in 2013, 43 in 2014, and 28 in 2017, all events producing hundreds of people wounded, traumatized, with many crippled for life. More on this, later on. 

All of the above was supplemented by another novelty component, the cherry in the cake: a monumental cyberattack on election day, primarily on the CNE computerised electoral system but also on other state services. It was one of the worst such attacks against Venezuela.

According to Venezuela’s minister of science and technology, Gabriela Jimenez, the first phase of the cyberattack targeted CANTV (Venezuela’s main internet service provider) starting at about 6 pm, just as polling centres began to close. The attack severely delayed the transmission of polling centres’ results to the CNE totalising centre, hence the several hours it took to announce the results. CANTV services are contracted with the US company Columbus that reported to its client, CANTV, of the deliberate cyber delay of the transmissions. 

Technically, the delay occurred due to the colossal increase in cyber-attacks directed to the CNE, Jimenez stated it was 30 million per minute, about which she asks, who has the technical infrastructure and expertise (algorithms, etc.), equipment, energy sources and resources, to unleash such volume of attacks per minute and sustain it for up to 20 uninterrupted hours? Jimenez also reported that the Caracas stock exchange, the science and technology ministry and other ministries, the Central Bank, the Identification and Migration service, Inland Revenue, and other public services, that is, outfits critical for the functioning of the state, were targeted. Thus, for instance, no digital payment can be processed (deliveries, purchasing of everyday items such as food, medicine, or payment of mobile phone bills, and much more) and no taxes can be collected because of the cyber-attacks.

The cyber-attacks have also involved the stealing of public institutions’ data and their publication, making public the names and full data of pensioners, and even the domicile of military officers with the slogan “Go for them”! In short, the cyber-attacks are terrorist attacks. Jimenez also explained that the source are accounts with disguised IPS, but that most though not all (unsurprisingly), are from the United States (see full interview with minister Jimenez here, mins 16:10 to 29:18 and see here list of institutions affected by the cyber-attacks). 

The cyber-attacks intended not just to wreck the computerised electoral system of transmission of the elections results so as to totally prevent the CNE from announcing any results at all, but also to disable as many other services essential for everyday activities aimed at creating generalised chaos and maximum pandemonium. 

The other key component of the US-led coup attempt was the well-prepared wave of violence launched in the aftermath of their electoral defeat. Maria Corina Machado and her combo unleashed thousands of paid-up thugs who went on the rampage on July 29, attacking anything that smacked of public property with the most intense hatred directed at the symbols of Chavismo (statues of Hugo Chavez, of Coromoto, an emblematic 17th century indigenous chieftain, and everything else that came within their reach; see details here), and, also, Chavistas of  flesh and blood, leading to the death of 25 people.

Foreign minister, Yvan Gil, informing the accredited diplomatic corps (23 Aug 2024,) told them there was clear evidence that Venezuela’s extreme right wing, “backed by the US government … had hired the organized criminal gangs Tren de Aragua and Tren del Llano to initiate the coup d’etat” and deploy them “to generate post-electoral violence.” These gangs had engaged in the “purchase of votes in favour of the candidacy of Edmundo González Urrutia in areas with a strong territorial and political presence of Chavismo.” So, “how is it that criminals who charge you a fee offer you to vote for a certain option in exchange for 50, 100, or 200 dollars?” (see the evidence of these links here, and details of the criminal gangs involved).

The coup strategists expected that the wave of wanton violence in many key cities, following the ensuing chaos and confusion caused by the generalised cyber-attacks, would force the authorities, as it actually did, to deploy the national guard to the many opposition-created points of violence as a diversion manoeuvre to facilitate the attack on the presidential palace. This last phase was conceived as a lethal blitzkrieg on the presidential palace. An armed mob attacked with a “bath of bullets” 60 international observers who were at the CNE HQ in Caracas. President Maduro reported to the nation that on July 29 there had been two attempts to storm the Miraflores (presidential) palace by armed mobs.  

Yvan Gil also explained that the coup model had been “designed by the CIA and the United States.” (in this regard, watch Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada’s lecture about this which he characterized as a new US coup d’etat modality, whose details give you the shivers). Up to 14 August 2024, 30 members of such groups had been arrested with an arsenal that included “13 firearms (four of which are rifles), 302 cartridges, a grenade, two telescopic sights, eight radio transmitters, ten flashlights, seven chargers, 35 Molotov cocktails, 12 cell phones, and six motorcycles.” These were professionals who, taking advantage of the melee created, were entrusted with the task to assault the presidential palace, in preparation of the coup’s final phase, a ‘mass march of on the palace’, proclaim Edmundo Gonzalez president and probably request immediate international (military) assistance. 

Maduro’s constitutional solution
The failure of the July 28 cyber-attack to destroy the CNE digital system (and that of almost every other public institution) did delay the polling stations’ transmission results, leading the CNE first bulletin to be issued nearly at midnight with 80% of the results which, in an irreversible trend, gave the victory to president Maduro (51.2% against Edmundo Gonzalez’s 44.2%; result confirmed with the CNE second bulletin with 97% of the results, with Maduro getting 51.95% against Gonzalez’s 43.18%). Literally seconds after the CNE’s first bulletin, Maria Corina Machado appeared on television rejecting the results, alleging fraud and proclaiming Edmundo Gonzalez the winner. This claim, in an amazingly homogenous chorus was, almost immediately, echoed by the world corporate media. Machado et al have claimed to have had 40%, then 73%, 80% and even 100% of the voting records, which they followed by posting, in an illegal website, false results giving Gonzalez 67% to 30% to president Maduro. 

Though the issuing of results by the CNE on July 28 had substantially dislocated a key component of the coup d’etat, the extreme right-wing launched the planned wave of violence anyway. Confronted with such a lethal US-led operation, on July 31 president Maduro filed an appeal before the Supreme Court to summon all candidates and representatives of all the parties “to compare all the evidence and certify the results of July 28 through a technical appraisal.” On the very same day, US State Secretary, Antony Blinken, literally moments after Maduro’s appeal, stated that “given the overwhelming evidence … that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes”, he extended US recognition to Gonzalez as the winner. However, a few days later, Blinken backtracked, withdrawing such recognition. This is unprecedented, the US has never backtracked on such an important decision, especially considering US’s obsessive, decades-long, fixation with Venezuela. 

The Supreme Court carried out an expert-technical investigation and analysis of the election as requested by president Maduro and it summoned all the candidates and all 38 political parties participating in the July 28 election, to submit all the election information they had. Most candidates complied, except Edmundo Gonzalez. Worse, the PUD parties supporting Gonzalez as a candidate did not submit any election material or evidence, “arguing that they do not have documentation (i.e.) they do not have witness records of the polling stations.” They were the only parties not to submit anything; the other 33 did. 

The CNE submitted all the election material in its possession, that is, 100 percent of everything. Furthermore, Edmundo Gonzalez, has failed to comply with Supreme Court summons, three times. And the ‘combative’ Maria Corina Machado, comic-fashion, has pretended to have gone into clandestinity. Thus, on August 22, the Supreme Court ruled that bulletins issued by the CNE were supported by the voting records transmitted by each of the voting machines and are in full agreement with the data provided by the national aggregation centres, therefore, “We certify, in an unobjectionable manner, the electoral material examined and validate the results issued by the CNE indicating that Nicolás Maduro Moros was elected.”

The reason is the crass election fraud perpetrated by Machado and others in the extreme right-wing coalition behind Edmundo Gonzalez’s candidacy. The election information they published in an illegal and fraudulent website includes 9,472 images of election records that represent 30% of the total election records (of over 30,000 polling places). Worse, 83% of them do not have metadata, which means they went through editing software, that is, they “are not faithful copy of the original.” The striking feature of Machado-Gonzalez election victory claims is the level of manipulation of the false results published in the illegal website whose dominion was created on July 27. This leads to the very pertinent question “If María Corina Machado and Edmundo González won the elections and have the records to prove it, then why would they post these fake records?” 

No wonder Blinken backtracked and not a single government in the world has recognised Edmundo Gonzalez as ‘president-elect’. Yet, from the White House to Southcom, EU’s gardener Josep Borrel, right wing governments in Latin America including Boric, infamous Almagro and the OAS, the Carter Centre, the UN Panel of Experts, and everybody else all the way down the world political food chain, including, of course, the world corporate media, that as it is to be expected, have questioned the validity of president Maduro’s re-election. 

Edmundo González Leaves Venezuela: Key Political Notes

Som Left intellectuals
Last but definitely least, this food chain includes leftist intellectuals and academics such as Alejandro Velasco, Gabriel Hetland and Mike Phips (there are a few others, but these three, due to the similarity in their messaging, are perhaps an emblematic sample). 

All three, with no evidence whatsoever, penned articles definitely concluding that Gonzalez had won and Maduro had lost. They seem to have been persuaded by the ‘data’ posted in the illegal website set up by Maria Corina Machado et al, which has been irrefutably debunked from every imaginable angle. Velasco bluntly stated “On July 28, Maduro lost.” (The Nation, 8 August, 2024). Hetland is worse, the title of his screed is Fraud foretold? (Sidecar, 21 August, 2024), in it he bullishly concludes that “Socialists, of any stripe, should not provide cover for a government that fixes elections and then clings to power by brutally punishing its poorest citizens when they protest.” Phipps’ piece (Labour Hub 21 August, 2024) states that Venezuela’s government response to the crisis caused by US sanctions was “repression and electoral fraud.” Probably, in their zeal to condemn the Bolivarian government, all three hastily depict the paid-up thugs unleashed by Machado et al as a working-class rebellion against the government.

All three questioned the cyber-attacks, depicting them as a ruse of sorts to justify fraud, arguing that the alleged hacking did not stop the CNE counting the votes between July 28 and August 2. Yet, they know the CNE informed in detail that the hacking had not stopped the counting but instead it had drastically delayed the transmission of results. As late as 19 August, science and technology minister reported that the CNE and 120 Venezuelan state sites were suffering cyberattacks., which have continued. This was followed by a terrorist attack against the extreme right-wing’s favourite target, the electric system on August 30, which affected 21 states, including “Táchira, Mérida, Barinas, Zulia, Falcón, Nueva Esparta, and partially sectors of La Guaira, Miranda, and Caracas.” Then, in September 2, the Libertador Simon Bolivar Terminal railway station suffered deliberate fire sabotage in its electrical room. There had been similar attacks in December 2021 which affected various parts of 19 states by the blackout, and which, in turn, had been preceded by yet another in March 2019 that affected 80% of the country. The cyber and terrorist attacks were and are real, no matter what these three may say.

All three depict president Maduro’s government as neoliberal or implementing neoliberal policies, claiming his administration represents a break with the revolutionary legacy of Hugo Chavez and all three blame the government as the key contributory cause of the misery millions of Venezuelans have endured. And although all three garnish their arguments by bemoaning US sanctions and reproaching the opposition for repeatedly crying out fraud in the past, they (un)wittingly parrot imperialism and the right-wing arguments of election fraud. All three argue for a ‘left’ or ‘democratic’ alternative to Chavismo, and in the case of Hetland for stop ‘covering’ (i.e., stop supporting) president Maduro’s government. All the contentions of this troika are either prejudiced distortions of reality, or simply false. On this, Nino Pagliccia, when referring to Velasco’s plea for an alternative to Chavismo, hit the nail on the head, by correctly asserting that such stance “is not an affirmation of the ideals of the Bolivarian Revolution, but a capitulation to the US and its sponsored opposition in Venezuela.”

What has substantially contributed to confuse the whole issue, perhaps unintendedly adding credence to the extreme right-wing, US imperialism and the world corporate media’s fake propaganda about a ‘July 28 CNE-rigged election’ narrative, has been the equivocal and unjustified views of Lula and Petro who, without any solid evidence, seemed to have taken for granted there was fraud in the elections. On August 15, president Maduro responded by saying the Venezuelan government will never intervene in the internal affairs of those two countries. And, he went on that as in Brazil’s case, Bolsonaro’s allegation of fraud in the 2022 election Lula won, and his refusal to accept the results, was decided by the Brazilian Judiciary, and “no one from Venezuela or our government went public to intervene in this affair.” 

Conclusion
So, to the question, was there election fraud in the July 28 presidential elections in Venezuela? The answer is a categorical YES, but perpetrated by Maria Corina Machado, US-backed candidate Edmundo Gonzalez and operatives in the PUD (as investigations are revealing). Clearly, the fake PUD website with the false election results which does not bear even the most basic scrutiny, was created on the premise of successfully disabling the CNE election system, so that the United States, its EU accomplices, its Latin American lackeys and Venezuela’s extreme right-wing could point to theirs as the only site with voting results. It was a central plank of the US-led coup plot. A coup plot the US could apply against any government anywhere (it makes me nervous to think of Brazil and Colombia in this connection). 

President Maduro, confronted with a US-led coup including a gigantic cyberattack aimed at disabling the CNE and as much as possible of state services, plus generalised violence throughout the nation, including two armed assaults against the presidential palace, could have opted for declaring a state of exception and restrict civil rights (Art.338 of the constitution). Instead, he chose to resort to the Supreme Court’s Electoral Section to resolve the electoral dispute (Art.297), whose result, as we have examined above, demolished the gigantic pack of lies and fake news around election fraud claims. That is, president Maduro resorted to the democratic mechanisms of the rule of law as stipulated in the constitution. The Supreme Court’s verdict contributes to the consolidation of democracy. Conversely, the PUD, Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez are left politically naked and morally exposed (about which no much effort is required), which explains why the former went into ‘clandestinity’ and the latter went AWOL. 

More importantly, the Chavista movement’s maturity and discipline, steered by President Maduro, was able to successfully defeat the coup by political means instead of force, and strictly within the rule of law and constitutional principles stipulated in the Bolivarian Constitution. As more details of the US-led coup plot come out, the strength and people’s support for the Bolivarian process gets sturdier. Conversely, the pathetic efforts by Maria Corina Machado and her US mentors to stage a massively promoted ‘great international protest’ which, despite mobilizing an army of influencers and paid journalists on social media, it dismally failed to even fill 4 blocs in Caracas (in other cities, it was worse). 

Just a month after president Maduro’s election victory and the subsequent defeat of the US-led coup, there was a massive terrorist sabotage to the Venezuelan National Electric System plunging almost the whole country into darkness. It was a rearguard action aimed at disabling state institutions in the hope of resuscitating the defeated US-led coup. On its part, the United States, with the complicity of the Dominican Republic authorities, hijacked a Venezuelan plane. The plane is used primarily by Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez. Is it sour grapes, or just an intensification of US aggression seeking to reverse Chavismo’s robust defeat of their coup plot? The US Dept of Justice stated (2nd September) it had “seized an aircraft we allege was illegally purchased for US$13 million through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Nicolas Maduro and his cronies.” 

Unlike some intellectuals, as in the sample in our piece, the US, its global accomplices and the world corporate media, do not ask what next for Chavismo? They don’t because they are part of a global US-led machinery aimed at overthrowing the Bolivarian Revolution to destroy all its achievements. The troika ask this question as though they have the answer when they seem unable to even spot a US-led coup even as it unfolds in front of our own eyes. However, president Maduro has answered that question by announcing mega-elections in 2025, which will elect 23 governors, 355 mayors, 23 legislative councils and 355 municipal councils, elections whose only requirement to participate is to comply with Venezuela’s laws. 

From the previous 31 electoral processes (and the July 28 presidential election), we know the 2025 elections will be fair, but they are unlikely to be free from US interference and US sanctions. The troika of our sample, though recognising the devastating consequences of US sanctions in the cited articles, seem to accept them as a fact of life (“The prospects of the US lifting sanctions appears remote”, Hetland) and noticeably fail to demand their lifting. Perhaps, for the coming 2025 elections the troika may craft well written pieces to demand the US does not interfere. We, in the solidarity movement, will continue to call for the immediate and unconditional lifting of all US illegal sanctions and for a stop to US criminal interference in its internal affairs. The president of Venezuela is elected by the people of Venezuela not hand-picked by the US State Dept. US Hands off Venezuela!

FD/OT

Francisco Dominguez

Francisco Dominguez, a former refugee from Chile in the UK, is Head of the Centre for Brazilian and Latin American Studies at Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom.