Venezuela: Coup rumors increase

Things are getting interesting in South America.

In Brazil, Dilma Rousseff was suspended from office as the Senate voted to start her impeachment trial

on charges that she illegally moved money between state-controlled entities to make her government’s budget deficit appear smaller than it really was

The following day in Argentina, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and other officials were indicted on charges of manipulating the nation’s Central Bank during the final months of her administration.

Then last night rumors of a coup popped up on Twitter regarding Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, after he declared a three-month state of emergency “to neutralize and defeat foreign aggression,” i.e., he thinks the U.S. is trying to overthrow him,

Maduro said the measures will likely last through 2017, but he did not specify if they will limit civil rights.The announcement, made with his full cabinet at his side, broadens the scope of an economic emergency decree in effect since January that was set to expire on Saturday.

Venezuela is in chaos. The country is broke, the oil industry – on which the country depends for 95% of its revenues – is in shambles, and tourism is dead,

Cruise lines won’t dock in #Margarita Island, #Venezuela. Port no longer “meets minimum standards” https://t.co/EcUktBLT4r

— Joel D. Hirst (@joelhirst) May 14, 2016

The headlines are horrific,
Growing Venezuela lynch mobs burn thieves alive.
Raw Venezuela: Looter Burned Alive, While “Streets Filled With People Killing Animals For Food”.
Add to that the food shortages, power outages, and medical crisis I’ve been posting about for years. And you can forget about the Chinese bullet train.

Not surprisingly, rumors of a coup are on the increase.

Joshua Goldman reports,

U.S. intelligence analysts are increasingly convinced that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is likely to be pushed aside by members of his own socialist movement before finishing his term.

Juan Forero explains,

The officials, who have extensive experience in the region, said that they and others in the intelligence community increasingly believe that President Nicolás Maduro could be removed from office, either in a “palace coup” led by associates close to him or in a military uprising. They said that the possibility of an overthrow or street violence is of concern to American officials, who want to avoid anarchy in an oil-rich country just a three-hour flight from Miami.

Daniel looks at the timing in the context of Mercosur: Daniel speculates that removing Maduro from office may be an option by the Cuban-controlled military as a means to avoid full pariah status for the country, now that Brazil’s new president, Michel Temer, may not want to countenance Maduro’s regime (and Temer may bring powerful allies to his side),

If Brazil goes against Venezuela it is likely that Uruguay will follow and Mercosur will be unanimous in its condemnation. Once Peru election is held in June even Unasur would go against Venezuela (and the recent hurried support to Dilma by Unasur secretary, the highly discredited puppet Samper, betray that worry).Thus the time for Castro to give the order to Maduro, and/or the narco-military to take the initiative to dissolve the national assembly once and for all is now. It is still possible that the OAS could fail to get enough votes to apply the democratic charter to Venezuela after Maduro acts. But once Temer decides to act against Venezuela, with the support of Macri in Argentina, the US and Canada, Mexico would follow. Small countries then will chose the big countries against a flat broke violent Venezuela and game over: Venezuela would be a pariah state and go the way of Cuba out of regional organizations.

But with the narco-military still in charge. Or that is the plan anyway.

And thus it is the time to act for them, the thugs, now, before Temer even has a chance to look at Venezuela. All that has been going on since last Monday points that way.

What Daniel means re: the OAS applying the democratic charter is that, were the OAS to declare that Venezuela had violated it, the country would be expelled from the OAS [See OAS Democratic Charter], which would mean pariah status for the country that Hugo Chávez envisioned leading the Hemisphere. (UPDATE: See note* below). What kinds of accommodations would the new narco-military “administration” be willing to make to avoid expulsion from the OAS leads you into the realm of pure speculation.

Participants at this week’s Concordia Summit in Miami, Spain’s José María Aznar, Colombia’s Álvaro Uribe and Andrés Pastrana, Chile’s Sebastián Piñera, Uruguay’s Luis Alberto Lacalle, and Bolivia’s Jorge Fernando Quiroga, discussed the failure of 21st Century Socialism in Latin America.

As Álvaro Uribe said on Thursday night, “Chávez died without having to experience the tragedy of his legacy.”

Related:
Fifty ways to say ‘debacle’.

*UPDATE NOTE:
Replacing Maduro is no simple task. Last month I mentioned several factors,

Maduro’s term ends next year. Why should the government hurry?
Cuba is getting new funds from the US, and is in no hurry to pressure Venezuela to improve.
The other actors in the region (drug cartels, FARC, Iran) have no incentive to precipitate a risky change.
The purpose of the regime is to consolidate power around itself, not to act in the benefit of the country.

So a replacement would have to be agreeable to the Cuban-controlled military, the Cartel de los Soles, others in the power elite, the FARC, and the Iranians, while being passable enough to the OAS to prevent the country’s expulsion.

And a military junta is not an attractive option, either.

UPDATE:
Linked to by the Pirate’s Cove. Thank you!

Linked to by the Daily Gator. Thank you!

Trending at BadBlue.