(WOLA is the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy group, an NGO that describes itself as a "research and advocacy organization advancing human rights in the Americas." Their website says, "We accept no U.S. government funds" and provides financial statements and tax documents. However, the Charity Navigator website gives them a 100% rating on Accountability and Transparency. But also shows $213,815 of "government grants" in the 2017 income, 8.5% of their income for the year.)
Ramsey and David Smilde comment on the prominent role that Mike Pence is playing in the current coup process in this pragmatic assessment:
... in the past week, the U.S. government has sought the spotlight of a very public leadership role. Vice President Mike Pence’s Twitter video on January 22, Trump’s statement recognizing Guaido on January 23, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s urging for the international community to “pick a side” on January 26 had predictable effects. They displaced attention from the contest between the Maduro regime and the Venezuelan people demanding change into a confrontation between Venezuela and the United States. This has not only put the Maduro government on more comfortable rhetorical terrain, it risks uniting Maduro supporters against an external menace while making it easy to paint the domestic opposition as actors being orchestrated from Washington.It's always useful to remember how disastrous the neocons' foreign policy advice has been in the past. And this is a neocon project.
They also describe the painfully obvious coordination of the coup leaders with the Trump-Pence Administration. Although coordination in this context means that Washington is calling the shots:
... this process has been brewing for some time and is fundamentally generated by dynamics internal to Venezuela. However, it was clear at the time that Guaidó’s big step on January 23 was coordinated with the United States, since the Trump administration was prepared to recognize him immediately. In subsequent days, news reports have detailed the extent of the coordination, revealing that Guaidó actually traveled to Washington in the weeks before his January 23 announcement and remains in communication with top national security officials in the White House. [my emphasis]They don't criticize the Administration's political intervention/subversion/support of the coup attempt. But they warn:
Foreign military intervention in Venezuela would be catastrophic. It would be bloody, costly, and devastating to an already suffering population. What’s more, it would be deeply unpopular: recent polling has made it clear that a clear majority of Venezuelans are opposed to the idea of foreign military intervention.
And they write, "The optimal path for restoring democratic institutions in Venezuela would be some kind of negotiated political settlement that leads to free and fair elections." They make it sound as though the failure of previous such dialogue attempts rests exclusively with Maduro. But they also caution, "If high-ranking officers in the armed forces were to force Maduro out, there is no guarantee they would support Guaidó, let alone hold new elections."
They also express doubts about the constitutional argument that nominal coup leader Juan Guaidó is using to justify declaring himself the legitimate head of government. Finally, they caution that current and proposed sanctions are a questionable route to achieve the alleged goal of securing Guaidó's rule: "While these sanctions will almost certainly deepen the humanitarian crisis on the ground and could fuel a growing exodus, past experiences in Cuba, Syria, North Korea and elsewhere raise doubts about whether they will contribute to the restoration of democracy in Venezuela."
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