{"id":382,"date":"2004-03-02T07:22:00","date_gmt":"2004-03-02T11:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=382"},"modified":"2004-03-02T07:22:00","modified_gmt":"2004-03-02T11:22:00","slug":"2004-no-coup-left-unfinished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=382","title":{"rendered":"2004: No coup left unfinished"},"content":{"rendered":"

Venezuela Protests Go On, Referendum Prospects Fade<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Chavez, elected in 1998 on a promise to fight poverty, has promised to crack down on disturbances and says the United States is backing an attempt by the opposition to topple him. <\/p>\n

Sunday, he called President Bush an “a–hole.” <\/p>\n

He also threatened to cut off oil supplies to the United States if it tries to invade or blockade Venezuela, which is its fourth-largest oil supplier. <\/p>\n

Chavez’s comments and the violence helped push oil prices to their highest level since shortly before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq last year. U.S. crude touched $36.45 a barrel. <\/p>\n

U.S. officials routinely dismiss his accusations as bluster.<\/p><\/div>\n

The invalidation of forged signatures is apparently behind the latest opposition protests and their decision to denounce the referendum process altogether.<\/p>\n

But as Ron Smith points out in What’s Really Happening in Venezuela?<\/b><\/a> is the reality they’ve realised a referendum would not give them the results they seek?<\/p>\n

If so, they should be nothing if not energised by recent<\/a> events<\/a> in Haiti.<\/p>\n

U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte<\/a>, in reaction to Aristide fleeing the country [which today has degenerated into a U.S. official version of events<\/a>], was quoted by NPR radio as saying “Haiti has turned a new page.” <\/p>\n

I’d say the real story has yet to be revealed and Negroponte would be the last person I’d turn to for an honest let alone accurate quote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuela Protests Go On, Referendum Prospects Fade Chavez, elected in 1998 on a promise to fight poverty, has promised to crack down on disturbances and says the United States is backing an attempt by the opposition to topple him. Sunday, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-6a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}