Maduro reveals the continuation of an on-going coup against his government

Venezuelan government officials and public media have recently announced that the “on-going coup d’état,” they claim has been attempted since February this year, has been finally defeated. In the official rhetoric this should be understood to mean that the guarimba [barricades] street protests of the last months are decreasing.

President Maduro however announced yesterday that this is not necessarily the case, and that the “on-going” character of the coup should be understood to mean that it is truly constant and continuous.

According to Maduro opposition leaders have recently met to plan the “collapse” of the country by the month of June. He says he had access to information about this meeting through “internal informants” he has inside the opposition ranks.

“They say that June will be the month of collapse, that in June the people will rise against the Government, that June is the month of the coup d’état, that June will see the end of the Revolution. (…) The crazy coup mongers will try to promote violence in June,” Maduro warned.

He also insisted on the claims previously made by Interior Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres that drug use is driving the street protests: “Some perverse coup mongers and guarimberos have been hiring criminal bands, and they are paying them with drugs and other means so that they can act violently and go out and kill. In some cases they are well known political and television figures. They want to drive the country into chaos. I denounce it. We have been constantly denouncing it.”

Maduro also said that he had ordered Rodriguez Torres to show the evidence of the government’s claims, because “there can be no softness or impunity with these coup mongers, these guarimberos, no matter what their last names are, no matter what their position is. Whoever is against the Constitution and the peace of the country will have to face justice. No one can blackmail me. No power will force me to give in [torcer el brazo].”

Coup d’état and the creation of a new special brigade

Interior, Justice and Peace Minister, Miguel Rodriguez Torres has revealed that the coup d’état he and other officials have been denouncing, “has been defeated by the national willpower.” 

According to Rodriguez Torres: “It is a method of coup d’état that does not imply the active participation of the Armed Forces. It has been proven around the world that this model of coup [created] by Gene Sharp, uses other strategies to overthrow governments.”

The Minister also announced that he will soon create a brigade to fight what he called “groups that generate violence”. “We are ready to activate next week, with President Nicolás Maduro, a special brigade to deal with this issue. (…) This will be a brigade that will fight against the groups that generate violence,” he declared in an interview for TELESUR yesterday.

Rodríguez Torres gave few details about the new brigade: it will be staffed by approximately 150 agents and will deal ostensibly with issues related to organize crime such as extortion, sicariato, and drug trafficking.

However the press note by the Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias frames the declarations by the Minister in a way that leave little doubt about the real purpose of this new special brigade. According to AVN:

"Since February Venezuela has faced the terrorist acts of ultra-rightists groups that have left 42 dead, hundreds injured, and destruction in public and private institutions, in their effort to overthrow the constitutional Government of Nicolás Maduro.

"58 foreign nationals have been detained for being involved in the acts. Some of them, as has been denounced by Rodríguez Torres, have links with the Colombian ex-President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, and with the paramilitary and drug traffickers of that country." 

In the 60’s it was LSD

According to a press note by the Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, President Maduro is determined to “fight against the anti-values of capitalism and the cult of violence and drugs.”

In this struggle Maduro sees the role of government as therapeutic: “In Venezuela we will cure our society of the anti-values of capitalism, the cult of weapons, violence and drugs. This I swear and this we will accomplish! We will cure our society!” he declared yesterday.

The President also explained how this culture of drugs and violence emerged: “In the 60’s they designed LSD and they introduced that hard drug in the Latino’s poor neighborhoods, in the black neighborhoods and among the young people. Thus came all this phenomenon of drug addiction, drug culture, cult of negative leaderships and mobsters.”