With the failure of its Plan B (destabilization), the Venezuelan opposition finally, on April 17, called on the National Electoral Council (CNE). It took three days for the Capriles Radonski campaign staff to make a formal complaint calling for a recount of the votes. Before they could arrive at this level of "civilized" behavior, eight people – all Maduro supporters - had to die and the entire country suffer 72 hours of irresponsible terror, following Capriles call for his supporters to "vent their rage in the streets."
The forceful response of the revolutionary government has obliged Capriles to retreat - first by encouraging the people to hold back, to avoid confrontation and then insisting on enforcement of the law through the National Assembly, in addition to prohibiting an opposition march to the center of Caracas - which had the expressed goal of provoking bloodshed. Capriles knows that he bears responsibility for the "rage vented" across the country by his followers. He is beginning to understand that he will be required to respond legally for these acts.
It is no accident that, amidst the opposition retreat once the coup plan failed, the friendly hand of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry should appear, insisting that a recount be conducted. His boy in Caracas has lost a fight in which the U.S. had invested a great deal of money and hope. One more time, the ability to control Venezuelan oil had slipped through their fingers. The U.S. therefore insists on tightening the rope, interfering in the country's internal affairs, making demands and threats.
Kerry faced the immediate response of Nicolás Maduro, who like Chávez is not disposed to concede an inch, saying, "There's the United States, John Kerry, from the State Department, talking about Venezuela. What are you doing talking about Venezuela? There are enough economic, social and political problems overwhelming the people of the United States... His script is the same as that of any one of these yellow opposition bourgeois leaders... Get your eye off of Venezuela, John Kerry! Get out of here! Enough intervention!"
Maduro has additionally reiterated that U.S. interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela over the last few months, and particularly during the campaign, has been brutal and vulgar. Now Kerry is throwing Capriles a life vest, warning that the U.S. "will have serious questions" if irregularities occurred during the April 14 election. To make the situation even more tense, he said the U.S. will not recognize Maduro as president-elect just yet.
Kerry has foregone any disguise and is implementing Plan B begun by his subordinate Roberta Jacobson, the State Department assistant secretary for Latin American affairs, who four weeks ago began to circulate comments about possible electoral fraud in the presidential elections. Kerry and Jacobson seem to have forgotten that the greatest electoral fraud ever occurred in their country in 2000, when Bush openly stole the election from Al Gore, who held a 500,000 vote advantage. A story Kerry wants to now turn around in Venezuela.
APRIL25,2013
FELIX LOPEZ
GRANMA.
