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A recentAssociated Pressarticle (New York Times,3/17/20) headlined "IMF Rejects Maduro's Bid for Emergency Loan to Fight Virus" declared:

The request is an about-face for Maduro, who for years refused to share economic data with the Washington-based lender and just last month condemned it as a tool of U.S. imperialism. In the past he has called the IMF a blood-sucking "assassin" responsible for plunging millions of people into poverty across Latin America.

The request was not much of an "about-face" for Venezuela's President Nicols Maduro, because it was the same type ofdisaster relief loanthe International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave to Ecuador in 2016 under former President Rafael Correa, another blunt IMF critic, after a massive earthquake. The loan was not one of the IMF'sinfamous"structural adjustment loans" that impose a menu of right-wing economic policies such as tax cuts for the rich, privatization of state assets and public sector lay-offs.

The IMF's rejection of the $5 billion emergency loan for Venezuela is, all by itself, justification for Maduro's "assassin" and "tool of U.S. imperialism" charges against the fund.

The IMF said that it refused the loan because "there is no clarity" on whether the "international community" recognizes Maduro's government. This legalistic excuse is reprehensible, because Maduro's government is in power and is therefore the only entity positioned to actually respond to the pandemic with life-saving action. But there are two other huge problems with the excuse, neither of which were mentioned by theAP.

First of all, contrary to what the IMF claims, there is tremendous clarity that the "international community" recognizes Maduro's government. Five months ago, the United Nations General Assembly voted Maduro's government onto the Human Rights Council with 105 votes. That's about double the number of countries that go along with the U.S. in refusing to recognize Maduro ("more than 50," according to theAParticle). AsReuters(10/17/20) reported at the time of the General Assembly vote, Venezuela won the seat despite "fierce lobbying" against it by Washington. TheAPand other western outlets routinely report the number of countries that do not recognize Maduro's government (i.e., that go along with Trump), but never that the majority of UN member states clearly do recognize Maduro and even accord his government the status of a seat on an influential international body.

Another big problem with the IMF's excuse for rejecting the loan was that in 2002, when Venezuelan President Hugo Chvez was briefly ousted in a U.S.-backed military coup, the IMF rushed forward to offer loans to the coup-installed dictatorship. The dictatorship led by business leader Pedro Carmona was recognized by almost no other country in the world except the U.S. Carmona was only in power for two days, but the IMF managed to get out astatementsaying that it was "ready to assist the new administration in whatever manner they find suitable." The IMF spokesperson who said that,Thomas Dawson, is also a former U.S. State and Treasury Department official. In fact, even theAParticle about the IMF's rejection of Maduro's request says that the U.S. is its "biggest shareholder and has a veto over major decisions."

While the request for aid was not a big "about-face" for the Maduro government, the refusal was a dramatic change from the Mafioso-like "take our aid or else" stance the U.S. government took towards Venezuela only a year ago (FAIR.org, 2/9/19). On Feb.23, 2019, Washington attempted to smash "humanitarian aid" into Venezuela through its border with Colombia.At the time,Reuters, like many Western outlets, produced headlines like "U.S. Looking for Ways to Get Aid Into Venezuela: Envoy" (2/14/19), "Venezuela's Maduro Starts Shutting Borders to Block Humanitarian Aid" (2/21/19) and "After Venezuelan Troops Block Aid, Maduro Faces 'Diplomatic Siege'" (2/24/19). ACBCheadline (2/16/19) to aReutersreport read, "Aid for Venezuela Arrives at Border as Maduro Vows to Block Entry."

Washington's aim was to use this aid stunt to overthrow Maduro. The hope was that Venezuela's military would defy Maduro's order to stop the "aid" delivery, or that some act of violence at the border would incite a rebellion. Top U.S. officials at the time made absolutely no secret of their aims. One of Trump's top advisers, the now-fired John Bolton, tweeted:

Any actions by the Venezuelan military to condone or instigate violence against peaceful civilians at the Colombian and Brazilian borders will not be forgotten. Leaders still have time to make the right choice.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., opted to obliquely threaten the families of Venezuela's top military officers as well (Twitter, 2/20/19):

.@Ivanr_HD you should think very carefully about the actions you take over the next few days in #Venezuela. Because your actions will determine how you spend the rest of your life.

Do you really want to be more loyal to #Maduro than to your own family?

Four big lies were used to depict this coup attempt as a humanitarian aid mission, and Western outlets likeReutersand theMiami Heraldsold all of them (FAIR,2/12/19):

A study by U.S. economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs showed that Trump's imposition of broad financial sanctions in 2017 may have caused 40,000 deaths by the end of 2018 alone (FAIR.org, 6/14/19). Trump has repeatedly intensified the already lethal sanctions since recognizing Guaid as interim president in January 2019 (Reuters, 1/28/19, 6/6/19, 2/18/20).

All of this made clear that the U.S. government's concern was the opposite of what it claimed: It always wanted Venezuela's humanitarian situation to get worse, not better. The IMF loan rejection as the deadly coronavirus spreads puts a few exclamations points on that fact. But don't look for a flurry ofReutersheadlines announcing that "Trump Blocks $5 Billion Emergency IMF Loan From Reaching Venezuela During Pandemic."Reutersappears not to have even reported the loan rejection in English, as of March 24. OneReutersarticle (3/19/20) mentioned Venezuela's request, but not that the IMF had already rejected it.

TheWashington Posteditorial board (3/20/20) scolded Maduro for asking the IMF for a loan that "he must have known would be turned down." Yes, how terrible of Maduro to expose the boundless hypocrisy and cruelty of a foreign government that's trying to overthrow him. ThePostthen pretended that Maduro is somehow forcing Trump to maintain "sanctions that are strangling Venezuela's vital oil industry" by rejecting "compromise" with Guaid.

Iran's government has also requested an IMF emergency loan to fight the virus (Reuters,3/12/20). No response yet from the fund as I write this, but theNew York Timeshas reported (3/21/20) that Trump officials have beendebating whether to bomb Iran as it struggles with the virus and crippling U.S. sanctions. That's reason enough to applaud the Maduro government's request to have the International Criminal Court (ICC)investigatethe U.S. government for crimes against humanity over its use of sanctions.

For now, the odds of success in bringing U.S. officials to justice are very remote. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has openly threatened to deny visas to the families of ICC judges if they try U.S. soldiers over war crimes in Afghanistan. Apologists for the U.S. in Western media have their work cut out for them, but history shows that they will descend to the task. Proving that Hellshouldexist, Eli Lake wrote aBloombergop-ed (3/22/20) headlined "The Coronavirus Is Not a Reason to Lift Sanctions on Iran."

Read this article:
Media struggles to justify cruelty to Iran and Venezuela amid spreading pandemic - Salon