Returning to Venezuela, the French journalist opined that the “overt coup attempt” — “which follows the pattern of hijacking social unrest for regime change policy is doomed to failure” — as it was “very poorly planned”.First, Russia, China as well as Turkey and Iran have signalled their support for the legitimately elected president of Venezuela — Nicolas Maduro, he stressed. Second,
“not only the Venezuelan army is loyal to Maduro, but the former labour union leader also has the support of Chavez’s Red Shirts, an informal but numerous militia organisation”, he added.
At the same time, according to the journalist, “a military attack from NATO or using Colombia and Brazil for a proxy war with Venezuela seems out of the question”.
“It is rather obvious that the US empire has lost his knack for coups”, Mercier said. “Take Chile in the early 1970s, when Henry Kissinger and the CIA decided to get rid of the ‘dangerous lefty’ Salvador Allende to curtail the so called ‘communist domino effect’, they handpicked General Augusto Pinochet to head a military junta to topple and murder Allende. One can say that imperialism, evil as it is, requires a minimum of skills and ‘savoir faire’ which seems to have vanished in recent US administrations, including the current one”.
As for Maduro, this situation could actually give him “an opportunity to improve on his country’s management which has been quite problematic”, the French journalist believes.
