Venezuelan General DEFECTED, Socialist Government Could END
A Venezuelan General defected spelling bad news for Maduro's Socialist government. Without complete military support his government will not be able to withstand protest and calls for Juan Guaido to assume the presidency.Socialist Venezuela has been rocked by protests for years and the problems have only gotten worse. But last month saw Juan Guaido declare himself interim president of Venezuela and garnered him massive support from Western Nations.Far leftist Pro-Maduro protesters are not bowing out and due to propaganda it is hard to know what is actually happening. But with the defection of a General we may be seeing the end of socialism in Venezuela.
Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Food shortages, medicine shortages, people have been fleeing the country to neighboring states, and there are even videos of Venezuelans attacking animals and livestock in desperation because many are starving.
The most recent news is that a man named Juan Guaido is challenging Nicolas Maduro for the presidency, declaring himself interim president.
Many countries associated with the United States and the West are recognizing Juan Guaido as the actual president, but Russia and others are backing Nicolas Maduro.
It's hard to know how this will play out, and because of the propaganda on both sides, it's hard to know what's actually true.
But one thing most people seem to agree on, nothing will change in Venezuela until the military decides to back a new president.
And that's the news we're seeing now.
The latest news out of Venezuela is that an Air Force general has defected from the Maduro government, and this could spell the end of Venezuela as we know it.
But before we get started, make sure you follow me on Mines at Timcast.
We're going to be building out a digital newsroom for Subverse on this platform.
I don't know what it'll look like, but it will be here, so make sure you go to minds.com slash TimCast and sign up and follow me.
And if you want to support my work, you can simply share this video and help spread the word.
The most recent news.
ABC reports Venezuelan Air Force General has defected from the Maduro government.
A Venezuelan Air Force General defected from the administration of President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday and called on his compatriots to participate in protests against the socialist leader's rule.
General Francisco Yanez is the first high-ranking officer to leave Maduro's government since January 23rd, when National Assembly President Juan Guaido declared himself the country's legitimate leader.
In a YouTube video, Yanez said, and referred to Guaido as his president, but refused to say whether he is still in Venezuela or has left the country.
In a brief phone conversation with the Associated Press, the officer confirmed from a Colombian number the veracity of his declaration and said he would not give further statements until given authorization by the commander-in-chief of the legal armed force, which is President Juan Guaido.
In the video, Yanez claimed that 90% of the country's armed forces are against Maduro.
Now, as I pointed out, the propaganda is thick, and it's hard to know what's actually going on.
But to the best of my ability, I will use as many sources as I can to try and break through the noise.
On Wikipedia, they describe Juan Guaido's assumption of presidential powers and duties, saying, Article 233 of the Constitution of Venezuela provides that, When the president-elect is absolutely absent before taking office, a new election shall take place, and until the president is elected and takes office, the interim president shall be the president of the National Assembly.
After what he and others described as the illegitimate inauguration of Maduro on 10 January 2019, Guaido said that he would challenge Maduro's claim to the presidency.
The National Assembly announced Guaido had assumed the powers and duties of president, and they would continue to plan to remove Maduro.
They called for demonstrations on 23 January, the 61st anniversary of the overthrow of dictator Marco Perez Jimenez, with massive numbers of demonstrators coming out on 23 January in cities throughout Venezuela and across the world.
He swore before Almighty God to formally assume the power of the National Executive Office as the President of Venezuela.
The U.S., Canada, Brazil, and several Latin American countries supported Guaido as interim president the same day.
Russia, China, and Cuba supported Maduro.
A defiant Maduro accused the U.S.
of backing a coup and said he would cut ties with them.
Following this, Russia warns U.S.
not to intervene in Venezuela as military backs Maduro.
From the New York Times, the Trump administration pressed its case on Thursday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling on all countries in the hemisphere to reject Mr. Maduro and align themselves with democracy, setting up a test of wills with the Kremlin.
Only a day before, Mr. Maduro's political nemesis, the opposition leader Juan Guaido, seems to have the momentum.
During nationwide protests against the government, he proclaimed himself the country's rightful president, earning endorsements from President Trump and several governments in the region.
But on Thursday, it was Mr. Maduro's turn to put Mr. Guaido on defense.
In a televised news conference, the leader of Venezuela's armed forces declared loyalty to Mr. Maduro and said the opposition's efforts to replace him amounted to an attempted coup.
It's difficult to know what's actually going on because propaganda is flying far and wide.
In this video, we see a police officer hug one of the protesters as they retreat from the protest.
Now, the Air Force General is saying most of the military is rejecting Maduro, but many people in the Venezuelan government aligned with Maduro are saying that's not the case.
We can at least see that ABC News and the Associated Press have confirmed the Air Force General's defection.
Just yesterday, we saw another major move.
EU states move to recognize Venezuela's Guaido diplomats.
European Union governments will move to recognize Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president from next week, but using cautious language for fear of setting a precedent for political crises, two EU diplomats said on Friday.
Nervous that Guaido's decision to declare himself president could set an example for other opposition leaders around the world, EU foreign ministers agreed in Bucharest this week to back him only until a new election could be held.
But back to the New York Times story.
They say, in a further blow to the opposition, Russia warned the United States against meddling
in Venezuela.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia telephoned Mr. Maduro and emphasized that destructive
external interference is a gross violation of the fundamental norms of international
law, according to a statement on the Kremlin's official website.
The United States ignored the admonitions, trying to rally other countries to reject
what Mr. Pompeo called Maduro's tyranny.
His regime is morally bankrupt, it's economically incompetent, and it is profoundly corrupt.
It is undemocratic to the core, Mr. Pompeo told a meeting in Washington of the 35-member Organization of American States.
The United States also offered $20 million in emergency aid to Mr. Guaido's side and requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Saturday on the Venezuelan crisis.
For most of us living in the United States, it would seem clear-cut.
The issue is that the people of Venezuela reject Maduro.
He's a dictator, he's driven the country into crisis, and people want a change.
But it's not that simple.
There are different perspectives from both sides of the conflict, including at an international level.
First, this story from NBC News.
Venezuelans take to the streets worldwide, calling for an end to Maduro's presidency.
Venezuelans around the world are united more than ever, said one Venezuelan activist.
In Miami, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans are preparing massive protests in cities worldwide Saturday to pressure the country's president, Nicolas Maduro, out of office.
Venezuelans are planning to fill the streets in more than 70 cities around the world, including Caracas, Miami, Madrid, Milan, Frankfurt, Melbourne, Athens, and Beirut.
We are breathing air of change, and we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, said Francisco Furman, an official with the National Assembly in Caracas, who has been shot four times during the protest in the past.
I plan to continue protesting and making my voice heard, he told NBC News in a phone interview.
In a report from two days ago from CNN, Venezuela's Guaido refuses to rule out accepting U.S.
military support amid escalating political crisis.
It would seem that with this rhetoric, with the massive protests, with the violence in the streets, we may actually be heading towards military intervention, though I wouldn't say I would bet on that right now.
We can see that you've got massive international forces at Now, of course, if we read NBC News and CNN and look to Twitter and social media, we're going to see nothing but support for ousting Maduro.
And obviously, if we go to Russian-backed sources like RT, it's going to be a bit inverted.
This story.
Twitter takes down hundreds of accounts linked to Venezuela amid U.S.
calls for regime change.
Twitter has announced that it took down about 2,000 accounts in Venezuela, most of which it claimed were engaged in a state-backed influence campaign.
This comes amid accusations of a U.S.-led coup attempt.
The San Francisco-based social media giant released a blog post on Thursday saying that it removed 1,196 accounts located in Venezuela, which it deemed to appear to be engaged in a state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic audiences.
It also removed another 764 accounts.
However, noted, we are unable to definitively tie the accounts located in Venezuela to information operations of a foreign government against another country.
The Twitter purge of accounts was met with criticism and accusations of censorship.
It may be true, 100%, that Twitter is removing state actors who are trying to push propaganda.
It also may be true that Twitter is just pushing out American propaganda.
It's hard to know it's actually true.
I'm not one to trust RT for the most part.
But they're going to give you the Russian perspective, and I think it's fair to say we're going to get propaganda from both sides, and breaking through to find the truth will be exceedingly difficult.
In this story from RT, we can see Abby Martin.
While pro-coup Venezuelans and right-wing exiles dominate the media sphere, tech companies are actively censoring pro-government accounts they say are working to influence people.
Ben Norton also spoke out, saying Twitter is now removing thousands of accounts supposedly linked to Venezuela's sovereign government.
This comes after Twitter suspended Venezuelan government accounts 1.5 years ago.
But look to Twitter and you can still see protests in support of Nicolas Maduro.
Larissa Costas tweeted out several images and videos of people protesting, presumably in favor of Maduro.
Now forgive the awful translation coming from Microsoft that Twitter uses, but it says, demonstration in the municipality San Fernando in rejection of the coup d'etat remote control from Washington.
And we can see this image, which apparently shows many people in favor of the government, and this is a pretty large protest.
The AFP news agency did publish this video from January 23rd, titled, Government supporters gather in Caracas for pro-Maduro rally.
It is absolutely likely these protests are happening.
It's not so simple.
You are going to see support for Maduro and support for Guaido.
It's impossible to know what's going to happen, but I would assume if you're in the West or in the United States, you're probably in favor of getting rid of socialist Nicolas Maduro, because many people believe he's bankrupted Venezuela with failed policies.
It just doesn't work.
But critics of this narrative and supporters of socialism and his government believe U.S.-backed sanctions and meddling are what's causing the devastation to Venezuela.
Juan Gerardo Guaido Marquez is a member of the centrist Social Democratic Popular Will Party.
So many people are going to assume that he's going to move a little bit away from the far socialist policies, but he is still a Social Democrat, so that puts him kind of like where Bernie Sanders is.
That's not too much further to the right than Nicolas Maduro, so there's no telling that if Guaido does assume power, there will be dramatic change.
I would make the assumption there would be, though, because we can see what didn't work in Maduro's government.
It just, it didn't.
I have looked through many different sources, and for the most part, what you're going to see is that Maduro is bad.
He's incompetent, his policies have failed, and there needs to be a change.
He has done many things in the past that are anti-democratic, and thus many people are now calling for his removal, and this may be the chance for the Venezuelans to bring about a new government and to bring about change.
It's hard to know what is right and what is wrong.
I am not in favor of military intervention, and there are many people on the left and the right who oppose it as well, but still many people on the left and the right who are in favor of overt intervention in Venezuela.
So all I can do is throw it to you and ask you what you think.
Would you support the U.S.
getting involved in regime change in Venezuela?
I don't know how to describe this, but as long as you have the military supporting one faction and others in the military supporting this other faction, it would be some kind of regime change.
Plain and simple.
Comment below, we'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Mines at TimCast.
I'll have more videos on my second channel, youtube.com slash TimCastNews.
