This is the first part in a two-part article. In the Western media these days there is quite a lot of hand-wringing about the plight of the poor Venezuelans and how we of democratic nations must intervene to avert a dire humanitarian crisis there, remove an evil dictator, restore democracy to the region, and so on. These are stories we have heard before in other regions, like Libya, Syria and Iraq, for instance. But emerging from behind the curtain of corporate media scrutiny is another story, quite different from what we are being told in Western nations.
What that is will come in the second part of this article. But first, there are other little tidbits we are not being told or which are purposely misreported, which are obscuring what is really at issue in Venezuela. We begin with what we are being told about Venezuela in the corporate press:
- Maduro is a dictator, who must be removed in order to restore democracy there
- The election that installed Maduro in his present term was a sham, and illegitimate
- Once democracy is restored, Venezuelans can return to prosperity by economic shock therapy, of a type we saw in Chile, Russia, Bolivia and Poland.
- A nobody prior to this year, one Juan Guaidó, is the legitimate leader of Venezuela
- The Venezuelans are facing a humanitarian crisis of dire proportions
- Venezuela faces an economic crisis due to Maduro’s mishandling of the economy
- Venezuelans are suffering under repression, government censorship
- Venezuelans used to be affluent before socialism. Now they are poor.
- The economic model of Venezuela (a socialist economy) is at the root of its troubles
There are more points to be certain, but these will suffice for our purposes. We have covered part of this in a previous post, so we won’t go over the old ground here, specifically about Guaidó. Instead we will look at some of the lesser-known machinations by powers behind the scenes.
To set the scene as to what is really going on in Venezuela, there is a currently a projected attempt at an aid convoy from nations supporting Guaidó for the 23rd (in a few days). That date is important to note, because in the Venezuelan constitution, an interim leader (a legal one, mind you) can only hold power for a month before calling for new elections. Guaidó proclaimed himself leader on January 23rd. In other words, Guaidó will have to step down as Venezuela’s self-proclaimed leader under constitutional law after the 23rd if there are not elections. This goes to the first five bullet points above.
[Update as of the 24th: The hoped for provocation that the aid convoys were meant to spark failed. There was sparse participation, comparatively, not the hundreds of thousands the opposition tried to rally. There were only a few violent clashes, a provocation or two and only a few deaths. One of the aid trucks was set on fire by opposition protesters on the Colombian side of the border, which was then swigtly and falsely blamed on government forces. Some opposition activists went so far as to try to disguise themselves as Red Cross workers, in clear violation of international protocol. Branson’s Live Aid-type of concert was likewise a bust with only an estimated 20,000 attendees at most, in contrast to the 200,000 the Washington reported. Drone footage tells that story. Venezuela has kicked the Colombian ambassadors and staff out of Venezuela. The Colombian government has recalled the aid vehicles.
None of the aid made it into Venezuela. For comparison, the US aid amounted to some 191 tons of food and medicine. The aid contributions from Venezuela’s allies is over 1,200 tons so far. This is one of the primary reasons, probably, that we do not see the public uprisings and outcries in Venezuela about the government stopping the US aid. There were a few low-level military defections, which were paraded in front of media by Guaidó, but this is in contrast to the 350,000-strong military of Venezuela. Mass defections would be needed for a proper coup, and so far that is not happening. If aid from allies continues, then the situation will rapidly fizzle, as it has already evidenced. Thus far, the working chart for Venezuela is proving itself.
On top of all that, Guaidó left Venezuela on the 23rd, sneaking across the border into Columbia to Branson’s aid concert. He is currently barred from leaving Venezuela by order of their highest court. Now, if he re-enters Venezuela he faces arrest and imprisonment. Mike Pence is to meet with him on the 25th to discuss ‘Plan C’, which will likely go the same as the aid, which was ‘Plan B’.]
Continuing: But there will be no elections, which technically will leave Guaidó dangling in the wind without a supposed constitutional leg to stand on. The event that has precipitated all the debate about Maduro being a dictator, sham elections, not the rightful ruler and so forth, was the 2017 Venezuelan constitutional crisis, during which the powers of the National Assembly were taken over by the Tribunal of Justice. From the Wikipedia article, cobbled from corporate media sources:
On 29 March 2017, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela took over legislative powers of the National Assembly. The Tribunal, mainly supporters of President Nicolás Maduro, also restricted the immunity granted to the Assembly’s members, who mostly belonged to the opposition. The dissolution was considered by the opposition to be a “coup” while the Organization of American States (OAS) termed the action a “self-coup”. The decision was condemned by some media outlets with analysts characterizing the move as a turn towards authoritarianism and one-man rule.
[Update: for a fuller explanation of the constitutional crisis, there is a video that explains it well, starting at 18:35, to 26:07] Because of the results of the 2017 constitutional crisis in Venezuela, at which point they were largely decommissioned, opposition parties have boycotted all elections called since the crisis. But as a result, Maduro and pro-Maduro parties have won those elections. Maduro is considered by most Venezuelans to be their legitimate president, with the National Assembly being only a symbolic body with no powers. The National Assembly, on the other hand, contests the validity of Maduro’s election. The result of the crisis is the primary reason why Maduro is seen as assuming dictatorial powers. I have seen little in the way of a balanced assessment of that crisis. Independent sources appear to side with Maduro, while corporate media tends to side with the National Assembly. Obviously, it is an internal matter that needs to be resolved by dialog within Venezuela, by Venezuelans.
The astrology around the crisis is quite clear: There was a usurpation of power, or at least an imposition of power. The chart is below (bigger):
There were two significant progressed midpoints among several at the time of the crisis (29 Mar 2017). The first, Pluto/Node=Sun points to the imposition of power. The second, Jupiter/Saturn=Ascendant (with the Ascendant making the direction) indicates a change of occupation or a separation, which is exactly what we saw, with the National Assembly being sidelined. The real question is, who was trying to usurp the powers of the government – Maduro, the Tribunal or the National Assembly, the latter covertly? The situation that had precipitated the crisis was the result of many factors, including economic downturn, violent protests against the government in 2014, active meddling by foreign governments since the Bolivarian Revolution, low revenues, sanctions against the Chavez and Maduro governments, and the death of Chavez in 2013, when Maduro was duly installed according to the constitution.
As to the present, the fact is that most people in the nation hadn’t even heard of Guaidó before his self-proclamation, and support for the opposition parties among the general populace is quite low. Even without the crisis, Maduro would have likely won the last election. And in the elections that followed upon the crisis the opposition parties refused to take part. They were not, as some sources have reported, prevented from participating. Maduro was elected, fair and square, regardless of the standing of the National Assembly. What we see in Venezuela is not the work of an autocrat. Maduro was a bus driver-come-union leader before entering politics. Looking at his chart (below, bigger), he simply doesn’t have the autocratic makeup.
With an autocrat we would expect to see a prominent Pluto, with one of the marks of a dictator being a Pluto/Ascendant combination. But that is absent with him. On the other hand, there is an Asc=Sun/Pluto tree, which can tend toward authoritarianism, or toward betrayal, but it is moderated by two aspect sets – a Sun/Jupiter square, and a sextile between Pluto and a Venus/Neptune conjunction, the latter leaning more toward one being too trusting and vulnerable on the one hand, and toward a visionary, magnetic outlook on the other hand. His Sun/Moon combination is not what would be considered an executive leaning, in fact quite the opposite. He does have abundant energy, though, with his otherwise unaspected Mars trine his Midheaven, an optimistic outlook (if not too optimistic), is highly independent (Sun square Uranus) but at the same time humanitarian. And it is this last point that contradicts his being an autocrat. And on top of that, he does not act alone in the government. Like any leader, he has to answer to many factions. He has the support of the military, which is his case is vital, reinforced by the Sun/Jupiter square (Jupiter rules his 6th house and is placed in the 8th). So, he enjoys both the support of the public and cares about them, with his Cancer rising, and has the support of the military. Unless there is a major intervention or he is taken ill or worse, he is in for the long haul.
The upshot of the preceding is that he probably feels he had to set things in motion with the constitutional crisis the way he did to protect the nation and the Revolution, rather than it being a grab for power. The people who are wanting to grab power in Venezuela are the opposition and corporate factions, along with and prodded by foreign state and corporate actors. As to his future, he will have the retrograde station of Saturn within orb of his Descendant on 30 April this year, and it will again reach that point with its final pass on Christmas Eve, making a conjunction with Pluto on his Descendant, along with the transiting Sun on 13 Jan 2020. The conjunctions and transits just described are also involved in a south node lunar eclipse to his horizon on the 10th, three days before. That period may well mark his leaving office, one way or another, if he is still in office then. And a point of real interest here is that transiting Saturn transited over the shadow point of its retrograde period – where Saturn makes its direct station during the retrograde phase – exactly on 22 January of this year, the day before Guaidó made his proclamation as president.
Returning to the aid shipment mentioned at the start here, the Venezuelans reject the aid attempt, and in fact have just received 933 tons of aid in the form of medical supplies from Cuba, Russia, China, Turkey and even Palestine, among other allies. They have just received an additional 7.5 tons of medical supplies from Russia. The aid that is supposed to come from opposition forces will likely include weapons for the opposition, along with the food and medical supplies that are being touted. It will be a media circus, with worldwide attention focused upon whether or not the Venezuelan army allows the aid into the country.
The Army has just blockaded sea and air links to Dutch islands. They are also partially closing the border with Columbia. It has closed the border with Brazil, with two indigenous Venezuelans having been killed thus far near the border. But there are questions about whether the deaths were caused by Venezuelan security forces.The Army has just blockaded sea and air links to Dutch islands. Guaidó claims to have hundreds of thousands of volunteers ready to bring in the aid. But the aid from the US comes with strings attached and is meant to bring about regime change. It is highly politicized, and as a result has been shunned by international aid organizations like the Red Cross.
There are several questions here, though. To start, the food aid is supposed to be for the poor, starving Venezuelans. They are hardly starving. A video from the past few days shows the real state of Venezuela’s ‘food shortages’. We don’t see people begging on the streets there, toothpick thin, with distended bellies from lack of food. Not like we see in Yemen, where we are also seeking to restore ‘democratic transitions’. We do see distended bellies in some people in Venezuela, but it is not from a lack of food.
The hope is that by challenging the aid convoys, the Venezuelan military will ‘see the light’ and allow the aid to come through, rebel against Maduro and oust him. That is the hope in Washington, anyway. This, apparently, is ‘Plan B’ from Bolton and Co., since their Plan A – replacing Maduro with Guaidó – has fallen in a heap. Again, this is to take place on the 23rd. The directions to the Venezuelan chart are shown below (bigger):
The likelihood of the aid convoy stunt succeeding, from the standpoint of fomenting an insurrection, is pretty slim from the look of the astrology. The directions to the Venezuelan chart show Venus aspecting the Sun (ruling the 10th house, the sitting administration), Ascendant and Midheaven, showing support from allies (Venus in general). This is further supported by the progressed Sun and directed Ascendant in aspect to Mercury, which governs both the 8th and 11th houses. On the one hand, the 8th house is highlighting the dire financial situation there, with foreign banks refusing to release funds to the government, but at the same time other nations seeking alternative methods of payment for Venezuela. On the other hand the 11th house highlights the nation’s allies, which are doing all they can to help under the circumstances, with themselves also often under the burden of sanction by the West.
But perhaps the most telling thing in the chart is the absence of the activation of opposition forces, ruled by Uranus (4th house) in this case, except for one thing: There is a directed Sun/Uranus midpoint to the Venezuelan Mars, which can indicate accidents and upsets, though not a coup in this case. The probable outcome would be a rash action involving military action (Mars, ruling the 6th house) that would interrupt services for a time. But as to toppling Maduro, the chart just does not show it – provided we have a good working chart. It would appear to be so, since the 2002 coup was clearly shown, with transiting Uranus on the 4th house and Mars on the 7th house cusps. That coup was essentially finished in two days, with Chavez being reinstated.
But another question is whether the opposition aid is actually needed, especially food? Apparently not, only specific items, such as highly used, manufactured goods, like toilet paper and hygiene products. Much of the crises about food in the past have been manufactured from within Venezuela by Venezuela’s private business and financial sectors. These are controlled by large cartels in Venezuela, who are largely on the side of the opposition, and they horde such goods to provoke the crisis that is portrayed in the Western media as being so dire. Public opinion in Venezuela is largely against any sort of foreign intervention, and the public is aware of what is being planned.
Trump has warned the Venezuelan military they could ‘lose everything’ if they do not let the aid through and back Guaidó. He went on to proclaim:
“We are here to proclaim that a new day is coming in Latin America. In Venezuela and across the Western Hemisphere, Socialism is DYING – and liberty, prosperity, and democracy are being REBORN”
This is where the big secret about Venezuela begins to come into view. Trump made a similar statement about socialism in his most recent SOTU speech, without much knowledge of socialism, apparently. Socialism under Chavez pulled Venezuelans out of poverty until the manufactured oil price squeeze sent their economy tumbling. It wasn’t socialism that caused the collapse of the Venezuelan economy.
This pretty much covers the bullet points listed at the start of this article, then. To get to the really big reason why Washington and European interests want to intervene in Venezuela, though, that will be covered in Part II…
Featured Pic from Long Room
Supermarket Pic from Vice News (2018)