The English-language press is either ignoring the situation, or presenting it as "Maduro must be delusional to think right-wingers in the USA, Spain, and Colombia are trying to have a coup! That silly guy, when is he going to just step down peacefully and let a pro-US champion of neoliberal economics take the helm?"
This is Venezuela, come on. They have coups more often than they go to the World Cup. Of course there was a coup. Of course the Maduro government knows more or less who is behind it. It's not FARC. It's not Russia or China. It's not the narcotraffickers. There are a limited number of entities that can throw a coup, and if the CIA is behind this one, they are royally fucking up.
Maduro gets a lot of flack for being a bus driver, but he really is a smart, capable bureaucrat. The thing is, he's presiding over a country that's not only suffering from economic collapse due to epic mismanagement, but which is also under sustained attack by everyone from the World Bank to a country club's worth of bitter Miami millionaires. He knows what's up. He's not going to cause an international incident by arresting Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma unless (1) he knows this guy is the guy or (2) he's on some coked-out, paranoid, power-tripping, spiral that will soon end with insanity and suicide.
Occam's Razor.
And here's the thing. This is a test. The rest of Latin America will not let whoever is behind the coup succeed. Maybe factions within Colombia's government are helping, but I guarantee you Santos is handing out pink slips right now. Uribe's team would have done the same thing, the only thing he hated more than Hugo Chavez was chaos. Latin America does not need another Honduras. That 2009 coup against Zelaya was a fuckup on every single level, and has led to nothing but madness. Can you imagine Venezuela as a failed state? With all that oil, and all those Russian weapons? Colombia doesn't want that mess right on their border, FARC would start back up and be worse than ever.
This is the first time that the entire OAS - oh wait, not the Organization of American States, that includes the USA. I'm thinking of CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which Hugo Chavez founded and which just met in Costa Rica to discuss Latin American affairs. Anyway, this is the first time that Latin America has unified and stood up to Washington, ever.
The first chance the Venezuelan opposition will get to challenge Maduro legally is in 2016. And that's if they can get their shit together and lobby for a special election! Which no one - not the CIA, not Madrid, not right-wing Venezuelans - has gotten around to doing (as far as I know). They seriously think they can buy themselves a coup d'etat before then.
It's not happening. They're going to have to wait until 2016. CELAC is going to stick this one out, watch.
Frankly, I think the right wingers have just made their goal, overthrowing Maduro, that much more difficult. Math is already on Maduro's side - Venezuela has more poor people than rich people. The opposition was already split between Capriles (the international favorite) and Leopoldo (the really, really good looking religious right guy), that certainly helped Maduro win the last election. And now, Ledezma is going to be running for president, too! Splitting the Venezuelan opposition into thirds! How does that hurt Maduro?
What was the freaking rush, anyway. Fuck. It's not like he's going to invade Texas and take our cows. Yes, I know, we can't keep gas prices low forever, by 2016 Venezuela will have a little more cash flow and of course Maduro will take credit for it. He's a politician. But jeez, Team Capitalism could use the next year productively, too. They could agree on ONE candidate start campaigning for him. I mean, it is a democracy, that's what you do, you campaign. Fucking A, this isn't rocket science. I'd pick Leopoldo. He's dumb as a box of rocks, but he'd win, and the right wingers could just hook him up with some smart advisors.
Leopoldo sometimes asks himself, "Is there more to life than being really, really good looking?"
