Image Courtesy: BBC

French diplomats speaking off the record are feeding a stream of threats to the media, making clear that Paris will support a bloody intervention to topple President Nicolas Maduro. “Indifference would be even worse than intervention,” one diplomat said. Another told Le Monde the European powers had given Maduro an eight-day ultimatum to step down “to give Nicolas Maduro a little time to decide whether he wants to be Gorbachev or Bashar al-Assad.”

As the Trump administration threatens to blockade Venezuela and even invade the country, a threat echoed by Brazil’s far-right government, the implications of this threat are unmistakable. Either Maduro hands over Venezuela to the imperialist powers, or they may target it for a proxy war as in Syria, where hundreds of thousands died.

As they face growing repression of “yellow vest” protests, it is critical for workers in France and across Europe to oppose the imperialist threats against Venezuela.

As it faces threats of blockade, a disintegration of its currency as inflation surges, and a collapse of broad sections of the working population into poverty, Venezuela is being targeted by a relentless campaign of provocations in the European media.

Speaking to France Inter, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stated that Maduro’s ouster and his replacement by Guaidó was necessary: “Only free elections will allow the state to have a renewed authority and democracy.” He said, “We have noted President Maduro’s refusal to hold presidential elections that would work to simplify, clarify and make more serene the situation in Venezuela, and we believe Mr Guaidó has the capacity and the legitimacy to organize such elections.”

The claim that Guaidó has the legitimacy to decide the fate of Venezuela is absurd. A 35-year-old right-wing operative who was politically unknown prior to the coup attempt, Guaidó has been backed and funded by the US NGOs and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a long-standing front for CIA interventions in Latin America and around the world.

The purpose of the coup attempt is not to restore democracy, but to plunder the country. Top Trump administration officials have not hidden the strategic aims of installing a US-backed operative as head of a state that currently has close ties, both military and economic, to Russia and China. Last month, US National Security Advisor John Bolton told Fox News: “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

The European ruling elite is deploying its bottomless hypocrisy as it portrays its intervention to back Guaidó, following that of Trump, as a disinterested democratic act. Asked on France Inter whether his position constituted an intervention in Venezuelan politics, Le Drian shamelessly denied it, declaring it to be a “call” or a response to “a request for help.”

In the meantime, European papers are downplaying or furiously denying the obvious: that they are trampling Venezuelan sovereignty underfoot, backing a right-wing coup launched by Trump. “The capitals that are the most implicated, including Paris, appear to be acting in line with Washington,” France’s Le Monde wrote, while Spain’s El Pais proclaimed: “The announcement made by Spain and other European countries is not a break with legality, but precisely an attempt to task the interim president with restoring it…”

Both papers insisted that their policy is a better way to install Guaidó in power and tried to distance themselves from Trump, claiming that they are in fact fighting his Latin American policy by opposing calls for a US invasion of Venezuela.

In its editorial “Support for Guaidó,” El Pais wrote: “US President Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric helps no one who wants a return to democracy in Venezuela. On the contrary, it strengthens Nicolas Maduro and his followers. Not only do constant calls for a possible military intervention by Washington cause understandable international concern, but the European Union and Latin America must clearly confront them. This is a red line that should in no manner be crossed. The 20th century was the end of US interventions in Latin America.”

As for Le Monde’s editorial, “Venezuela: supporting not intervening,” it reiterated calls for a coup: “The crucial factor is that the Venezuelan army has not for now changed camp. Mr Guaidó must continue his efforts to manage to convince them.”

It pointed, however to the danger of a US conflict with Russia and China, as well as the politically explosive situation in Latin America, after the recent elections of Jair Bolsonaro’s fascistic regime in Brazil and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s populist government in Mexico. It wrote, “In this volatile situation, one thing is certain: US military intervention, which President Trump is threatening, would be a grave error.”

Such attempts to present European imperialism as pursuing a fundamentally different, more responsible and less aggressive policy than Trump are false to the core—dictated principally by the concern about opposition in the European and international working class to their policies.

Behind the scenes, powerful inter-imperialist rivalries are no doubt exploding between Washington and the EU. The scramble to divide up profits and oil from Latin America is especially bitter as Trump threatens the EU with trade war measures like tariffs on German car exports, and with Europe’s role as the top investor in Latin America in the balance. The European powers are no doubt afraid of the consequences, both economic and political, of a disastrous US occupation of Venezuela.

Presenting the European powers as opposing wars and coups is, however, a political lie. The 21st century has seen a drastic upsurge in US and European imperialist bloodshed, with wars in the Middle East, Africa and also the Western hemisphere, where US-led military interventions took place from Haiti to Colombia. However bitter their conflicts with Washington, the European powers themselves deployed troops to Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali, Syria, Libya and beyond. Their support for a coup in Venezuela only confirms that they have descended into utter lawlessness.

Originally published in WSWS.org

Courtesy: Countercurrents.org
 

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The result was clear enough: the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi went into the Saudi embassy on October 2 and never came out alive.  (Even an attempt of the gathered crew of death to procure a Khashoggi double was noted.)

For aspiring authoritarians, the Saudi state is a model instructor.  First came blanket denial to the disappearance: the Saudi authorities had no idea where the journalist had gone after October 2.  On October 18, Riyadh officially acknowledged Khashoggi’s death.  By October 21, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had come to the conclusion that this had, in fact, been murder, and a mistake. “This was an operation where individuals ended up exceeding the authorities and responsibilities they had”.

Then, an improbable story of a fist fight developed through the media channels. (When one has to kill, it is best to regard the enemy as inappropriately behaved when they dare fight back.)  In the presence of 15 Saudi operatives, this was all richly incredulous – but the Kingdom does specialise in baffling and improbable cruelties.

It was clear that distancing was fundamental, hence the cultivation of the “rogue” theory, with Saudi operatives taking a merry trip off the beaten path.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was happy to pour water on the suggestion. “We have strong evidence in our hands that shows the murder wasn’t accidental but was instead the outcome of a planned operation.”  It had been executed “in a ferocious manner”.

The Turkish president has, however, danced around the issue of ultimate state sanctioned responsibility.  Neither King Salman, nor Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have been publicly outed in any statements as either showing awareness of the killing or ordering it.  Prince MBS and his father are happy to keep it that way, severing their links with the killing as assuredly as the killers had severed the journalist’s fingers.  This is evidenced by the Crown Prince’s own labelling of the act as a “heinous crime that cannot be justified”.

The Saudi Public Prosecutor has also decided to move the case from one of accidental killing (fist fights will do that sort of thing) to one of planned murder.  A bit of cosmetic housecleaning has been taking place (another authoritarian lesson: look busy, seem engaged with heavy concern): 18 people have been arrested and two advisers sacked by the Saudi state.  The Crown Prince, according to the official Saudi Press Agency, has chaired the first meeting of a committee established to reform the country’s intelligence services.

This authoritarian blueprint also implies a staying power in the face of other states who see Saudi Arabia as cash cow and security partner.  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a rich appetite for foreign arms, a point not missed on the weapons makers of the globe.  Some attrition is bound to take place: certain countries, keen to keep their human rights credentials bright and in place, will temporarily suspend arms sales.  Others will simply claim disapproval but continue leaving signatures on the relevant contracts of sale.

Some ceremonial condemnations have been registered.  Members of the European Parliament voted upon a non-binding resolution on Thursday to “impose an EU-wide arms embargo on Saudi Arabia.”  Germany, temporarily concerned, has suspended arms sales to the House of Saud, with Chancellor Angela Merkel deeming the Khashoggi killing “monstrous”.   Canada’s Justin Trudeau briefly pondered what to do with a lucrative defence contract with Riyadh worth $12 billion, only to then step back.

The Canadian prime minister did acknowledge that the killing of Khashoggi “is something that is extremely preoccupying to Canadians, to Canada and to many of our allies around the world” but has not made good any threats.  His predecessor has become the ideal alibi.  “The contract signed by the previous government, by Stephen Harper, makes it very difficult to suspend or leave that contract.”  Cancellation would lead to penalties which, in turn, would affect the Canadian tax payer.  How fortunate for Trudeau.

France, the United Kingdom and the United States remain the three biggest suppliers of military hardware to the kingdom, a triumvirate of competitors that complicates any effective embargo.  Which state, after all, wants to surrender market share?  It’s a matter of prestige, if nothing else.  President Donald Trump’s reaction is already clear: a suitably adjusted lid will be deployed to keep things in check till matters blow over; in the meantime, nothing will jeopardise a $110 billion arms deal.  Business with a theocracy can be patriotic.

The French angle has been reserved and coldly non-committal.  “Weapons exports to Saudi Arabia are examined in this context,” claimed foreign ministry deputy spokesman Olivier Gauvin, meaning that his country’s arms control policy was made on a case-by-case basis.  For France, keeping Riyadh in stiff opposition to Tehran’s regional ambitions has been a matter of importance in its Middle Eastern policy for decades, a point reiterated by President Emmanuel Macron in April.  And the Kingdom pays French arms exporters well: between 2008 and 2017, Saudi Arabia proved the second biggest purchaser of French arms (some 11 billion euros), with 2017 being a bumper year with licenses coming to 14.7 billion euros.  Riyadh can expect little change there.

Britain’s Theresa May, in the tradition of elastic British diplomacy (condemnation meets inertia), has insisted that her government already has the appropriately stringent rules on arms exports, another way of shunning any European resolution that might perch on human rights.  Such strictness evidently does not preclude the eager oil sheiks of Riyadh, though Britain’s foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt did suggest the Khashoggi killing, should it “turn out to be true” would be “fundamentally incompatible with our values and we will act accordingly.”  Such actions are bound to be symbolic – much money has been received by the British arms industry, with earnings of £4.6 billion coming from sales to the Kingdom since the Saudi-led war on Yemen began in 2015.  Sowing death, even if through the good agency of a theocratic power, is lucrative.
The fate of Khashoggi, cruel and ghastly, seems a piddle of insignificance in that light.  “Brexit,” urged Philippe Lamberts, MEP and leader of the Group of the Greens, “must not be an excuse for the UK to abdicate on its moral responsibilities.” That abdication, on the part of Britain and its arms competitors, took place sometime ago.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

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