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Old 04-30-2019, 06:13 AM
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Unhappy 'The Moment Is Now': Clashes Erupt After US-Backed Guaido Calls for Military Uprising

'The Moment Is Now': Clashes Erupt After US-Backed Guaido Calls for Military Uprising in Venezuela
By: Jake Johnson - Common Dreams - 4-30-19
RE: https://www.commondreams.org/news/20...sing-venezuela

Elected government of President Nicolas Maduro vows to end coup attempt orchestrated by "traitors" supported by Trump administration

Photo link: https://www.commondreams.org/sites/d...?itok=6Lc0sq-C
U.S.-backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido calls for a military uprising against the elected government.

The elected government of Venezuela said it is working to put down a right-wing coup attempt after U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido called for a military uprising in a video posted to Twitter Tuesday morning.

"The moment is now," said Guaido, who was flanked by dozens of heavily armed soldiers and armored vehicles. "People of Venezuela, it is necessary that we all go out into the streets, to support democracy and recover our liberty. Organized and united, we should move to the main military installations."

Video link: https://twitter.com/i/status/1123166303756390400

Shortly following Guaido's call, videos posted to social media appeared to show clashes between government forces and the opposition beginning to erupt.

On Twitter, Venezuelan information minister Jorge Rodriguez said the government is "confronting and deactivating a small group of traitor military personnel who positioned themselves... to promote a coup d'état against the Constitution."

And Vladimir Padrino, the Maduro government's foreign minister, said in a tweet: "We reject this coup attempt that wants to fill the country with violence. The pseudo-political leaders of this subversive attempt have employed troops and policemen with weapons on a public highway to sow chaos and terror."

Even as the news of Guaido's video statement was breaking, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), one of the loudest voices in the U.S. government backing the overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, took to Twitter with a series of posts calling on Venezuelans, including military and police, to pick up arms against the government.

"Liberty & freedom is never easy," tweeted Rubio from his safe vantage point in the U.S., thousands of miles away. "But it is always worth it."

Online, RT was carrying a live stream from a section of a highway in Caracas near where the reported clashes appeared to be taking place:

Another video link: https://youtu.be/4_JRY0m_F8I

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Another mess in the making. Is humanity collapsing - is this an environmental issue? What in the hell is going on in our world? Is there no Peace & Quiet anymore?

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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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Old 04-30-2019, 06:25 AM
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Cool Exclusive: Blackwater founder’s latest sales pitch - mercenaries for Venezuela

Exclusive: Blackwater founder’s latest sales pitch - mercenaries for Venezuela
By: Aram Roston & Matt Spetalnick / World News & Reuters - 4-30-19
RE: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-v...ws%29&&rpc=401

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Erik Prince - the founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater and a prominent supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump - has been pushing a plan to deploy a private army to help topple Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicholas Maduro, four sources with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

Over the last several months, the sources said, Prince has sought investment and political support for such an operation from influential Trump supporters and wealthy Venezuelan exiles. In private meetings in the United States and Europe, Prince sketched out a plan to field up to 5,000 soldiers-for-hire on behalf of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, according to two sources with direct knowledge of Prince’s pitch.

One source said Prince has conducted meetings about the issue as recently as mid-April.

White House National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis declined to comment when asked whether Prince had proposed his plan to the government and whether it would be considered. A person familiar with the administration’s thinking said the White House would not support such a plan.

Venezuela opposition officials have not discussed security operations with Prince, said Guaido spokesman Edward Rodriguez, who did not answer additional questions from Reuters. The Maduro government did not respond to a request for comment.

Some U.S. and Venezuelan security experts, told of the plan by Reuters, called it politically far-fetched and potentially dangerous because it could set off a civil war. A Venezuelan exile close to the opposition agreed but said private contractors might prove useful, in the event Maduro’s government collapses, by providing security for a new administration in the aftermath.

A spokesman for Prince, Marc Cohen, said this month that Prince “has no plans to operate or implement an operation in Venezuela” and declined to answer further questions.

Lital Leshem - the director of investor relations at Prince’s private equity firm, Frontier Resource Group - earlier confirmed Prince’s interest in Venezuela security operations.

“He does have a solution for Venezuela, just as he has a solution for many other places,” she said, declining to elaborate on his proposal.

The two sources with direct knowledge of Prince’s pitch said it calls for starting with intelligence operations and later deploying 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers-for-hire from Colombia and other Latin American nations to conduct combat and stabilization operations.

‘DYNAMIC EVENT’
For Prince, the unlikely gambit represents the latest effort in a long campaign to privatize warfare. The wealthy son of an auto-parts tycoon has fielded private security contractors in conflict zones from Central Asia to Africa to the Middle East.

One of Prince’s key arguments, one source said, is that Venezuela needs what Prince calls a “dynamic event” to break the stalemate that has existed since January, when Guaido - the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly - declared Maduro’s 2018 re-election illegitimate and invoked the constitution to assume the interim presidency.

Maduro has denounced Guaido, who has been backed by most western nations, as a U.S. puppet who is seeking to foment a coup. Key government institutions – including the military – have not shifted their loyalty to Guaido despite increasing international pressure from sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies.

Guaido has stressed that he wants a peaceful resolution, and Latin American governments recognizing his authority have urged against outside military action. Senior U.S. officials, without ruling out armed intervention, have also emphasized economic and diplomatic measures to pressure Maduro.

CLOSE TIES TO TRUMP

Prince was a pioneer in private military contracting during the Iraq war, when the U.S. government hired Blackwater primarily to provide security for State Department operations there.

In 2007, Blackwater employees shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians at Nisour Square in Baghdad, sparking international outrage. One of the Blackwater employees involved was convicted of murder in December and three others have been convicted of manslaughter.

Prince renamed the Blackwater security company and sold it in 2010, but he recently opened a company called Blackwater USA, which sells ammunition, silencers and knives. Over the past two years, he has led an unsuccessful campaign to convince the Trump administration to replace U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan with security contractors.

Since 2014, Prince has run the Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group, which has close ties to the state-owned Chinese investment company CITIC and helps Chinese firms operating in Africa with security, aviation and logistics services.

Prince donated $100,000 to a political action committee that supported Trump’s election. His sister, Betsy DeVos, is the administration’s education secretary.

Prince’s role in Trump’s campaign was highlighted in the report by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, released this month, on alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

The report outlined how Prince financed an effort to authenticate purported Hillary Clinton emails and how in 2016 he met in the Seychelles islands, off east Africa, with a wealthy Russian financial official on behalf of Trump’s presidential transition team.

Prince spokesman Cohen declined to comment on the Mueller report.

TARGETING FROZEN ASSETS
The two sources with direct knowledge of Prince’s Venezuela plan said he is seeking $40 million from private investors. He also aims to get funding from the billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets that have been seized by governments around the world imposing sanctions on the OPEC nation, a major oil exporter.

It’s unclear, however, how the Venezuelan opposition could legally access those assets. Prince told people in pitch meetings, the sources said, that he believes that Guaido has the authority to form his own military force because he has been recognized internationally as Venezuela’s rightful leader.

Prince envisions a force made up of “Peruvians, Ecuadoreans, Colombians, Spanish speakers,” one of the sources said, adding that Prince argued that such soldiers would be more politically palatable than American contractors.

Reporting By Aram Roston and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Kieran Murray and Brian Thevenot

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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