Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
In its latest major forced intervention in Venezuelan affairs Washington has now allowed Venezuela’s pro-Guaido opposition to take control of diplomatic properties. Reuters reported this week that opposition representatives are now in control of three such Venezuelan diplomatic properties in the US — two buildings belonging to Venezuela’s defense ministry in Washington and one consular building in New York — confirmed by Guaido’s US envoy on Monday.
The US State Department has welcomed the move, encouraging the seizure of Venezuela’s embassy in Washington from the UN-recognized government of “illegitimate” President Nicolas Maduro. Guado’s representative, envoy Carlos Vecchio, said Monday the opposition group plans to take control of the embassy itself in Washington “in the days to come.”
Guaido’s opposition “government-in-exile” takes control of a defense building Monday, via Carlos Vecchio/Twitter.
“We are taking these steps in order to preserve the assets of the Venezuelans here in this country,” Vecchio said while speaking from the office of Venezuela’s military attache to Washington. According to Reuters the opposition’s first act was to remove Maduro portraits from the buildings and replace them with Guaido images, photographs of which was then circulated among western media.
To be expected, a US State Department spokesman told reporters the United States was “pleased to support these requests” regarding takeover of consular and other offices from Caracas’ oversight and security. This comes following the US withdrawing all of its own diplomatic and State Dept. personnel from Venezuela last week.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry was quick to condemn the “violation of international law” regarding the buildings, urging US authorities to “take the necessary measures to immediately reverse this forcible occupation” of its diplomatic offices.
The moment Maduro’s portrait was taken down and replaced with Guaido’s:
Asumiendo el control del Consulado de Venezuela en Nueva York. #18Mar https://t.co/FfW6iLTkHz
— Gustavo Marcano. (@GustavoMarcano) March 18, 2019
And it doesn’t appear that the building seizures were the result of sudden mass defections among Venezuela’s diplomatic corps either, though a defected military attache could be seen in photographs supporting the move.
Reuters reported that only a handful appeared to have gone along with the takeover:
Of 55 staff members, 12 decided to remain in the United States and support Guaido, Vecchio said on Monday. He added that his staff would work out of the attache building, which is in the upscale Kalorama neighborhood and has an assessed value of $2.2 million, according to Washington property records.
Though Maduro has weathered the past couple months of turmoil which has seen various US tactics brought to bear, including a failed attempt to force US humanitarian aid into the country as well as biting sanctions against state oil company PDVSA, it appears the Trump administration is ready to keep up the heat of regime change efforts against Caracas, short of war (for now).
Meanwhile Washington continues to seize Venezuelan assets, the latest of which are financially-troubled Citgo refineries — all of which Vice President Mike Pence weeks ago expressly stated would be transferred to the Venezuelan opposition under Guaido. Late last month Pence said while meeting with Guaido in Colombia: “We will work with all of you to find every last dollar that they stole and work to return it to Venezuela.”
But for now it doesn’t appear Guaido’s government-in-waiting has attracted enough popular support and momentum inside the country to gain traction toward a successful coup.
How pathetic is this move, a puppet embassy next ? Seems the US is running out of ideas. Which means Venezuela will weather this storm. :)
The last thing Venezuela needs is a embassy in America. End of discussion. Only deal with friendly countries.
True. How typical of the spoiler and criminal Uncle Sam to totally ignore UN recognition of a fairly elected Maduro . The Ugly American has shown his true face again.
Please don’t refer to the US government as American for it is anti-American also. It doesn’t represent the people of America, only the zionists and greedy psychopaths at the top. This can readily be seen in the crumbing infrastructure, increasing poverty, homelessness and attacks on programs which assist ordinary Americans etc. while the military budget continues to expand for bigger and grander acts of aggression on the world stage.
Any country which attempts to do right by it’s people is soon targeted by the Empire. Look at the assault on Venezuela for example, where the poor have benefited from the resources of the country and everything that’s being done to reverse that and confiscate it’s natural resources.
True nowadays. But things used to be different. It used to be accepted that countries could be enemies, but diplomacy still needed to happen and so you shouldn’t dick around with embassies. It is primarily the US that has been gradually eroding the standards surrounding treatment of diplomats and embassies, and moved towards making “pulling out their embassy” a cheaper and cheaper publicity stunt. So nowadays it’s not worth having an embassy with the US and certain of their allies if you don’t get along with them, because they have no respect for international law or standards of decency.
wonder if this is under any factual law in force or just an ad hoc manoeuvre on the spur of the moment – guess it is which sort of makes you wonder if there is any legal security at all in moronistan – nah doubt it if you consider the cabal of corrupt and criminally insane officers of the country – think fatso, think bedbugcrazy bolton und zu weiter.
Bestimmt doch!
“We will work with all of you to find every last dollar that they stole and work to return it to Venezuela.”
Good one…
Yeah hehe i think the truth is more like: we will work to steal every last dollar from venezuela.
There fixed it!!
You can buy anything in America, even other countries.
Zero Hedge’s initial sentence should have been written so: “In it’s latest major intervention into Venezuelan affairs, Washington identified, promoted and helped execute the ousting of 43 official Venezuelan staff from their offices. It is believed a dozen yanki stooges, former members of the Venezuelan mission helped in this unprecedented violation of international law. Their first task was to hang Guaido on the wall”…..Freudian slip above???? “a picture of”, prior to Chump
since guaido is neither de jure nor de facto a representative of the excutive powers of venezuela, I s’pose what moronistan and the corrupt and criminally insane cabal in washington dc are doing is nothing short of theft, you know, cheap thievery. and the same goes for the gold the perfide albions in friggin london stole and the citgo petroleums assets expropriated by the criminally insane cabal in washington dc.
and so it goes and I s’pose it’s occasioned by the long run of defeats moronistan has suffered over the last 25 or so years. in fact, that cupboard is bare and nothing to show for all the trillion of dollars spent on warfare in that period. just a crumbling infrastructure back home, a decreasing longevity due to opioid-use and a non-existent national health service and poverty on the same level you would expect in the blackest of africa and a schoolsystem that is useless, unless mom and dad can put up 100000bucks p.a. for the offspring. truly hilarious. criminally insane runs the country.
“Meanwhile Washington continues to seize Venezuelan assets, the latest of which are financially-troubled Citgo refineries — all of which Vice President Mike Pence weeks ago expressly stated would be transferred to the Venezuelan opposition under Guaido. Late last month Pence said while meeting with Guaido in Colombia: “We will work with all of you to find every last dollar that they stole and work to return it to Venezuela.”
And how does ‘Venezuela’ get this money?
They never will.
This shows the US has absolutely no respect at all for established international laws…or any laws of any kind. Even I would never have expected Trumps gang to be this criminally bent. This is what happens when a mafioso runs things. Only Israel flaunts international laws as badly as this. I wonder…
It’s only fitting that now that Venezuela has left the US and had it’s properties confiscated by the US and non-Venezuelans, that the US will be able to trade goods and services manufactured at those confiscated properties. They may as well come up with a different flag as well for their tiny virtual country, existing only at those properties.
Guaidò, this self-proclaimed clown, lives in a luxury hotel in the VIP area of Caracas, there is no honest Venezuelan who would not spit in his eye, everyone now considers him an idiot. President of the Samba circle. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d77fabd9f7c112e3ade8be29c7373d7b8f6bf3973f0b982f902b49abc3f2d96.png