CIA terrorism haunts Latin America again

Harboring antipathy towards Nicolás Maduro and his methods, and doubting the outcome of the Venezuelan election he proclaimed, does not justify normalizing CIA action within Venezuela, as major Brazilian newspapers do. The fight against drug trafficking doesn't even fly in high school. Beyond the present and blatant violation of International Law, history condemns the modus operandi of the American intelligence agency, in reality a highly qualified espionage group capable of sabotaging governments, assassinating heads of state, and other evil deeds.

The CIA's actions are cinematic, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to classify them as terrorism, a term now defined as: the systematic use of violence (or the provision of the means to do so) — or the threat of violence — for political purposes, with the aim of intimidating, coercing, or destabilizing governments or civilian populations. That's what the so-called "intelligence" agency does, plain and simple.

Just look at what the CIA did in Brazil during the 1964 military coup. The agency provided logistical and financial support to the conspiracy that overthrew President João Goulart. Operation Brother Sam involved supplying fuel, weapons, and ships to the coup plotters. The CIA's support for the military coup plotters is inseparable from the brutal dictatorship that oppressed Brazil for 21 years.

Operation Condor, another example, is the cherry on top of the CIA's terrorist activities in South America. Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia were victims of this mega-operation coordinated by the American intelligence agency, through logistical support, information exchange, and agent training for the transnational persecution of leftist opponents. The result was hundreds of assassinations and disappearances, something that became commonplace during the Cold War, thanks to the aforementioned agency.

The persecution of the Tupamaros, in support of Juan María Bordaberry's dictatorship in Uruguay in the early 1970s, was carried out with the decisive help of the CIA, whose model for training torturers is perfectly described in "State of Siege," a great film by Constantin Costa-Gavras.

Not to mention the preliminary activities that resulted in the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 and what all that entailed, at the hands of one of the most repugnant beings in the history of humanity, Augusto Pinochet. 

In Chile, the CIA – or the United States, it makes no difference – financed the reactionary press against Allende, especially the newspaper "El Mercurio," which sabotaged the economy in various ways, notably by encouraging a truckers' strike. The Pinochet dictatorship, blessed by the CIA and the United States, lasted 17 years. Again, Costa-Gavras produced a spectacular film about it: "Missing," which faithfully portrays the decisive contribution of the United States to that sad reality.

The Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Argentina (through complete intelligence support for Jorge Videla's military junta), Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, and Cuba (which deserves its own article: there were over 600 assassination attempts against Fidel Castro alone) were also the scene of illegal CIA activities. It seems that Venezuela's turn has come.