Venezuela mot hyperinflation och kollaps

The first shipments of U.S. humanitarian aid for Venezuela arrived at the country’s western border Thursday, setting the stage for a clash with the government of President Nicolas Maduro, who has pledged to block the supplies.

Two trucks arrived in the Colombian border town of Cucuta, and took the supplies to a warehouse next to an unused bridge that connects the countries. More deliveries are expected soon, though the scale of the need is immense. The supplies will be sent into Venezuela next week, opposition lawmaker Gaby Arellano said in a phone interview.

Venezuela’s security forces used freight containers and a tanker trailer to cut off the span, and are patrolling the dry riverbed nearby.

Juan Guaido, the Venezuelan National Assembly leader recognized as the country’s rightful leader by more than 30 governments, is using the aid to pressure Maduro’s authoritarian regime and demonstrate his ability to help the masses. But Maduro has said the effort is a pretext for invasion, and there’s no sign that his armed forces will let the shipments through.

Fue concluido a principios de 2016, pero debido a la crisis entre Venezuela y Colombia de 2015 y el cierre fronterizo de Venezuela el puente no ha sido abierto oficialmente.3​

Before the fateful day of January 22, fewer than one in five Venezuelans had heard of Juan Guaidó. Only a few months ago, the 35-year-old was an obscure character in a politically marginal far-right group closely associated with gruesome acts of street violence. Even in his own party, Guaidó had been a mid-level figure in the opposition-dominated National Assembly, which is now held under contempt according to Venezuela’s constitution.

But after a single phone call from from US Vice President Mike Pence, Guaidó proclaimed himself president of Venezuela. Anointed as the leader of his country by Washington, a previously unknown political bottom-dweller was vaulted onto the international stage as the US-selected leader of the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves.

Echoing the Washington consensus, the New York Times editorial board hailed Guaidó as a “credible rival” to Maduro with a “refreshing style and vision of taking the country forward.” The Bloomberg News editorial board applauded him for seeking “restoration of democracy” and the Wall Street Journal declared him “a new democratic leader.” Meanwhile, Canada, numerous European nations, Israel, and the bloc of right-wing Latin American governments known as the Lima Group recognized Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.

While Guaidó seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, he was, in fact, the product of more than a decade of assiduous grooming by the US government’s elite regime change factories. Alongside a cadre of right-wing student activists, Guaidó was cultivated to undermine Venezuela’s socialist-oriented government, destabilize the country, and one day seize power. Though he has been a minor figure in Venezuelan politics, he had spent years quietly demonstrated his worthiness in Washington’s halls of power.

“Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, an Argentinian sociologist and leading chronicler of Venezuelan politics, told The Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”

Diego Sequera, a Venezuelan journalist and writer for the investigative outlet Misión Verdad, agreed: “Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”

While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.