The US navy’s role behind the “Operation Gideon”

  

The recent “Operation Gideon” attempt by US mercenaries to land in Venezuela to over throw Maduro is not an isolated adventure. The US Southern Command (SouthCom) has been preparing to facilitate and follow up on the plan to catch Maduro. This is evident from the following events and public statements. Obviously, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Lot more should have gone on  secretly.

In the middle of the struggle against covid19 crisis, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced at a White House briefing on 1 April that the US would double its naval deployment under SouthCom’s capacity to conduct anti-drug operations in the Caribbean. The additional naval assets include destroyers, littoral combat ships, Coast Guard cutters, patrol, AWACS and JSTARS aircrafts, helicopters, surveillance drones and Security Forces Assistance Brigade Company for advise and assist. This is an overkill since the drug interdiction clearly does not need such expensive and massive destructive assets. Moreover, major part ( 80 percent) of sea- based drug trafficking goes on the Pacific side, according to the American authorities themselves. So why the deployment in the Caribbean and not in the Pacific?

The media reported that the deployment announced is one of the largest U.S. military operations in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama to remove Gen. Manuel Noriega from power and bring him to the U.S. to face drug charges. The reference to Noriega was made intentionally by the Administration to inspire those who wanted to go after Maduro. 

In January this year, a littoral combat ship had conducted a “freedom-of-navigation” operation close to Venezuela’s coastline to test the preparedness of Venezuelan navy. The Venezuelans made some noise but they could not do anything about it.

In Aug 2019, Adm. Craig Faller, the head of SouthCom said,”military officials are focusing on preparing for “the day after” once “isolated” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro leaves power”. In an interview on 21 April, he said that the recent decision to double anti-narcotics assets in Latin America was months in the making and not directly tied to Maduro’s indictment in New York on charges of leading a narcoterrorist conspiracy. 

On 30 March 2020,  a mysterious cruise ship RCGS Resolute was involved in an incident off the Venezuelan coast which led to the sinking of the Venezuelan Coast Guard patrol boat Naiguata following a collision. The cruise ship did not have any passengers but had a hull strong enough to hit and sink the Venezuelan patrol boat, without any damage to itself. The Venezuelans accused the vessel of committing an act of "aggression and piracy" by intentionally ramming and sinking their patrol boat. The cruise vessel went away to Curacao, leaving the job of rescue of the 44 crew of the patrol boat to the Venezuelans. Admiral Faller’s comment on this incident,  “It was a bad day for Venezuelans. Their lack of seamanship and lack of integrity is indicative of how it all played out.”

Secretary of State Pompeo responded to a question from the media saying that ‘ the US government had “no direct” involvement in this operation’. When the Operation Gideon was bungled, the US Administration had no option but to distance themselves.

Money for the operation

In answering another question, he said, “ As for who bankrolled it we are not prepared to share any more information about what we know took place. We will unpack that at an appropriate time”. It is possible that the financing could have come from the Venezuelan government funds and assets, estimated at 11 billion dollars, which have been frozen by US authorities in the name of sanctions. Recently the Trump administration moved 342 million dollars belonging to the Venezuelan Central Bank from a frozen Citibank account to another account at the New York Federal Reserve. On 15 April, the National Assembly lead by Guaido approved in a virtual session, access to some funds that had recently been released by the US government. This money is being used, among other things, to pay for the diplomats appointed by Guaido in countries which recognize him. 

Reasons for failure

There are two main reasons for the failure of the invasion attempt. First, the Cuban intelligence, which is advising the Venezuelan regime, is always one step ahead of their American counterparts. The Cubans have an impeccable record of preventing and stopping the numerous American attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro and invade their country. It is an expertise gained over a long period of sixty years, day in and day out. The Cuban intelligence is embedded not only with their Venezuelan counterparts but also in the Venezuelan military to guard against conspirators and coupsters. President Chavez started this system after the coup against him in 2002. 

Second, the Americans do not have in-person contacts within Venezuela to understand the real situation within Venezuela, recruit allies, provide support and prepare the ground from within. There is no US embassy in Caracas. This is a major handicap. Before 2002, the US military attache had his office within the Venezuelan army headquarters. Chavez kicked them out after the coup.  Hmm.. this reminds one of the statement attributed to the former president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, “ the reason why there are no coups in US is because there is no American embassy in Washington DC.

Man behind the ops

The US policy of regime change by hook or crook is not going to stop after this abject failure of Operation Gideon. The US will continue to bet on clandestine military and paramilitary attempts to overthrow rather than through genuine negotiations or democratic means. This is clear from the appointment of Elliot Abrams as the US special representative for Venezuela since January 2019. He has so much of Latin American blood in his hands with his notorious track record for using US military and covert assistance in the eighties to cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and civil wars in Central America.  As  Assistant Secretary of State in the Reagan administration, he had arranged supply of arms and other support to the Guatemalan Rios Mont dictatorship which massacred several thousand indigenous people, the rightwing death squads in El Salvador which killed leftists in thousands and the Contras who committed atrocities against the Sandinista government. He was indicted for his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal but got out with a presidential pardon. Abrams was said to have had a hand in the coup against Chavez in 2002.  Now Abrams does not need to resort to any illegal operation to get funds as he did in the Iran-Contra scheme. He has an open access to millions of dollars of Venezuelan money frozen in US. So long as Abrams is the point man for Venezuela, one should expect more Operation Gideon type of attempts.

The Week magazine published the article with an edited version on 11 May
https://thewire.in/world/operation-gideon-a-flop-but-its-producers-in-washington-will-keep-targeting-venezuela