AFTER the failure at the Guri hydroelectric power plant left much of Venezuela without power last Thursday night, Venezuelan authorities, after a huge effort, managed to restore power to ‘many parts’ of the country.
However, the country’s grid took another big hit on Saturday when many of the restored systems were knocked out once again.
Venezuela has now suspended school and business activities amid the continuing blackout, while the hospital network is in a huge crisis.
President Nicholas Maduro has accused the US of systematic ‘sabotage’ and said that the systems had been nearly 70 per cent restored when ‘we received another attack, of a cybernetic nature, at midday … that disturbed the reconnection process and knocked out everything that had been achieved until noon.’
He said of the US: ‘We discovered that they were carrying out high-tech … attacks against the power systems.’ Maduro continued that additionally ‘one of the sources of generation that was working perfectly was also sabotaged indicating domestic “infiltrators” were attacking companies from the inside.’
Maduro accused Washington of waging an ‘electricity war’ on Venezuela, while communication and information minister Jorge Rodriguez accused the US of a major orchestrated criminal cyberattack.
Meanwhile, leading US officials, who have been seeking to strangle Venezuela with massive sanctions and now with electronic warfare, are cynically blaming the socialist policies of Maduro’s government for ‘letting the country’s infrastructure crumble to breaking point’. They are preparing the way for US military intervention.
The US has now withdrawn all of its diplomats from Venezuela and it and dozens of other countries are now recognising opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim leader.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday blamed Russia and Cuba for causing Venezuela’s crisis by supporting President Nicolas Maduro, and said he had urged India not to help Maduro by buying Venezuelan oil.
‘This story is not complete without acknowledging the central role Cuba and Russia have played and continue to play in undermining the democratic dreams of the Venezuelan people and their welfare,’ Pompeo told reporters.
His comments came after the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Russian bank Evrofinance Mosnarbank for helping Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA evade US financial restrictions.
The crisis is now set to explode on the streets as Guaido’s supporters strive to take advantage of the devastating US electronic war attack to overthrow Maduro and install a US-backed puppet regime to hand over Venezuela’s oil to the major US oil companies.
Opposition leader Juan Guaido and his chief ally, the United States, say Maduro’s claims that the US sabotaged the power grid with a ‘cyberattack’ are an attempt to divert attention from the government’s own failings.
Guaido says he will ask the Venezuelan legislature, the National Assembly, to declare a ‘state of alarm’ as well as a ‘30 day state of emergency’ in order to request international aid amid the continuing power outages.
Guaido, who declared himself acting president in January, told reporters he has convened an emergency session of the National Assembly ‘to take immediate actions with respect to the necessary humanitarian aid.’
He said he planned to tour Venezuela to seek support and lay the groundwork for a massive rally in Caracas. This will lead to a major confrontation with the masses of people that support Maduro and is calculated to create the conditions for the US and its allies to militarily intervene.
US and UK workers have a major responsibility to defend Venezuela from intervention by US and UK imperialism.
The US and UK trade unions must tell the US and UK governments that any military intervention into Venezuela will be met with general strikes at home!