Write a commentVenezuela is the subject of U.S. aggression, according to the American Association of Jurists (AAJ).
The AAJ described the US's illegal seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker as an "internationally wrongful act" and an "act of aggression."
President Trump openly touts regime change of President Maduro. However, in the past, Washington supported dictatorships in Venezuela.
Venezuela Analysis wrote, in "1908, the US Navy helped Venezuelan Vice President Juan Vicente Gómez seize power in a coup. Gómez, known as 'The Catfish,' would rule the country either directly or through puppet presidents, until his death in 1935. His regime was one of inconceivably medieval brutality."
Dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez came to power in 1952. The New York Times wrote, "[the United States] did business with the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship." Washington gave Jiménez the Legion of Merit. Supporting dictatorships was a long-standing part of U.S. foreign policy.
In "Beneath the United States," Lars Schoultz wrote, "a new member of the State Department's Latin American division wrote his chief that 'the United States supports, legally and financially, such men in power as are widely recognized to be dictators.'
"Recently, Washington gave a narco-dictator a pardon. Juan Orlando Hernández ran a narco-dictatorship in Honduras after the Obama Administration backed a coup of Manuel Zelaya. The Honduran army abducted President Zelaya and flew him out of the country in 2009. Washington has a long history of interference and violence in Honduras.
In the 1980s, the CIA trained and equipped Honduran death squads. The Baltimore Sun wrote, "Battalion 316, [was] a CIA-trained military unit that terrorized Honduras... At least 184 of the battalion's victims are missing and presumed dead. They are called 'desaparecidos,' Spanish for the 'disappeared.'
The National Security Archive revealed, "Despite CIA knowledge of Honduran military abuses, more than $1 billion in U.S. taxpayers money flowed to the Honduran military throughout the 1980s."
Steven Kinzer wrote, "Between 1980 and 1984, United States military aid to Honduras increased from $4 million to $77 million." T.J. Cole said, "Between 1982 and 1993, the US taxpayer gave half a billion dollars in military aid to Honduras. By 1990, 184 people had 'disappeared.'
"This was all a part of a calculated U.S. foreign policy that benefited U.S. corporations. The Guardian wrote, "Fruit corporations from the US turned Honduras, an impoverished tropical backwater, into a huge banana plantation at the start of the 20th century. They dominated its economy and politics, making it the original 'banana republic'."
Until today, "Honduras is heavily dependent, not just on trade with the US, but also on remittances from Hondurans that are in the US. They're a big part of the annual GDP of the country."
Recently, the Trump Administration interfered in Honduras's election. The Financial Times wrote, "Trump had said 'narcoterrorists' would take over Honduras if," the Libre party "was reelected and threatened to cut off [remittance] aid unless Asfura won." President Trump told Hondurans they vote a certain way or they don't get their money.
