What\u2019s changed in Venezuela and Cuba since Biden became President? Nothing. But as US foreign policy on those two great threats to America continues seamlessly on from the Trump presidency to the Biden presidency, there\u2019s something the White House and the media don\u2019t want you to know.<\/p>\n
Though you\u2019d barely know it from the media, Venezuela just had an important election. Though not a presidential election, the regional elections were significant because, since the opposition fully participated for the first time in several years, the election was an obvious referendum on Maduro\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n
If you listen to press statements from the White House or the media, the outcome should have been obvious. Oppressed Venezuelans living under an illegitimate dictatorship finally had the chance to vote for the government they really want. Had the opposition won, the media would have been full of front page stories on the ouster of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and the party of Hugo Chavez.<\/p>\n
But the opposition didn\u2019t win. So the media kept it secret.<\/p>\n
Convinced that the party of Chavez and Maduro would win when the US didn\u2019t want it to win, the US pressured the opposition to boycott previous elections to make the unpalatable elections appear illegitimate. The people elected Maduro and supported his government. When that didn\u2019t work, the US pressured the opposition parties to run in hopes of defeating Maduro. But the people elected the party of Maduro.<\/p>\n
Nothing has changed across generations of US administrations in Venezuela. The United States takes Chavez out in a coup; the people of Venezuela put him back in office. The United States pressures the opposition to boycott the election; the people of Venezuela put Maduro in office. The United States pressures the opposition to compete in the election; the people of Venezuela put the party of Maduro in office. When the opposition boycotts, the United States says the election is illegitimate; when the opposition participates, the US says the election is illegitimate.<\/p>\n
But despite US meddling and the attempt, once again, to overturn a Venezuelan election in a silent coup, the election was not illegitimate. A delegation of election observers from an American legal group, amongst other election observers,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0the election was \u201cbalanced and transparent.\u201d Not only Maduro supporters, but \u201cvoters aligned with opposition parties also expressed confidence in the voting system.\u201d<\/p>\n Election monitors from the European Union said:<\/p>\n \u201cThe electoral process showed the persistence of structural deficiencies, although electoral conditions improved compared to the three previous national elections.\u201d<\/p>\n Improvement over previous elections is not bad, since international observers have consistently certified Venezuelan elections as fair, and the Carter Center has called Venezuela\u2019s election process \u201cthe best in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The fairly represented and contested election produced the same result as prior elections. Chavez and Maduro\u2019s United Socialist Party of Venezuela won 20 of 23 governorships. They also won the huge majority of mayoral elections.<\/p>\n That is not the result the US wanted. So, despite the fairness and transparency of the election, Secretary of State Blinken issued a\u00a0statement<\/a> charging that:<\/p>\n “The Maduro regime deprived Venezuelans yet again of their right to participate in a free and fair electoral process, during Venezuela\u2019s November 21 regional and local elections.\u201d<\/p>\n The American election observers responded that they:<\/p>\n \u201creject the U.S. State Department\u2019s false characterization that Venezuelans were denied their right to participate in a free and fair electoral process.\u201d<\/p>\n The US continues to ignore the voice of the Venezuelan people and once again, despite the obvious election results, the State Department\u2019s statement, stubbornly refers to Juan Guaid\u00f3 as the \u201cinterim President.\u201d<\/p>\n The US government and the mainstream media want you to believe that the people of Venezuela have never had a choice and have had an unwanted dictatorship forced upon them. The story the media does not want you to hear is that America\u2019s presidential choice, Juan Guaid\u00f3, represents a coalition that is largely discredited, does not enjoy the support of the people and does not even enjoy the support of the moderate opposition. When given the chance to vote, whether the opposition is boycotting or participating, the people consistently choose the party of Chavez and Maduro.<\/p>\n The way the American government and media tell it, the next series of huge street protests will be enough to bring down a fragile Cuban government that is barely holding on to power. That\u2019s the story they\u2019ve been telling for seventy years.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s the story they recently told again. The current round of protests had been carefully planned for months. The nationwide \u201cMarches for Change\u201d was scheduled for November 15. The Biden administration endorsed the demonstrations. So did Congress: on November 3, the House of Representatives voted 382-40 \u2013 and you thought they couldn\u2019t agree on anything \u2013 for a resolution<\/a>\u00a0declaring \u201cstrong solidarity\u201d with \u201ccourageous Cuban men, women, and youth taking to the streets in cities and towns across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n What the media and the government doesn\u2019t want to tell you is that, once again, it didn\u2019t happen. Stephen Kinzer reports that \u201cAnti-government protests that were supposed to engulf the country in mid-November turned out to be far smaller than their promoters in Washington hoped.\u201d And, of course, the government is nowhere close to falling.<\/p>\n The false narrative has failed despite American efforts to intervene and support it. In October, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0the US embassy of \u201cplaying an active role in efforts to subvert the internal order in our country.\u201d That is not just rhetoric or hyperbole. Cuba expert William LeoGrande\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that the US embassy in Havana \u201chas taken a leading role supporting dissident activists, pushing the boundaries of what\u2019s normally allowed under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.\u201d Cuban journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cin September, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)\u00a0gave<\/a>\u00a0$6,669,000 in grants for projects aimed at \u2018regime change\u2019 in Cuba.\u201d Juan Gonzalez, the senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council recently\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that the Biden administration is \u201cfully committed to supporting, supporting and strengthening the voice of the Cuban people who want change.\u201d LeoGrande says that \u201cThe United States and Cuba are on a collision course over US diplomats\u2019 support for \u201cdemocracy promotion\u201d programs.\u201d<\/p>\n In both Venezuela and Cuba the US has aggressively intervened in an attempt to make a desired and imagined plot come true. In both countries that attempt has failed. But in both cases that has not stopped the US from telling that story.<\/p>\n Ted Snider<\/i><\/strong>\u00a0has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.<\/i><\/p>\nCuba<\/h2>\n
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