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VENEZUELAN EMBASSY, WASHINGTON — A group of activists banding together as the “Embassy Protection Collective,” in defense of the sovereignty of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, defied orders by the U.S. government to vacate the premises by the 25th of April. Later in the morning, the Trump administration’s special envoy to Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, condemned the activists, saying that they would “have to leave.”

The activists, Abrams argues, are “clearly breaking the law.”

In interviews with MintPress News, Embassy Collective protesters argued the opposite: that an invasion of the Venezuelan Embassy by U.S. authorities would be illegal under international law as defined by Article 22 of the Vienna Convention. The article states:

Article 22 confirms the inviolability of mission premises – barring any right of entry by law enforcement officers of the receiving State and imposing on the receiving State a special duty to protect the premises against intrusion, damage, disturbance of the peace or infringement of dignity. Even in response to abuse of this inviolability or emergency, the premises may not be entered without the consent of the head of mission.”

“Today is the last day that Venezuelan diplomats in the United States have to leave the country,” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and member of the Embassy Protection Collective, told MintPress News. “There were a few diplomats left that work with the Organization of American States (OAS) and today they said they had to be out. So tomorrow there are no diplomats left in the embassy, which opens the way for the Guaido folks to come in.”

After the OAS recognized the representatives of Venezuela’s self-appointed president, Juan Guaido, in violation of its own charter, the State Department issued the Venezuelan diplomats a two-week ultimatum to vacate the embassy.

Meanwhile, the elected government of Venezuela has turned over the keys to the activists in hopes they may be able to safeguard the building. For the past two weeks, members of the collective have been protecting the building.

Speaking via live stream, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza repeatedly thanked the group:

We are very honored because you are protecting the Venezuelan territory… And please, keep on doing it. It’s important, it’s really important for the Venezuelan people. You are an example to us, to all the Venezuelan people. You are an example to the American people as well.”

 

“How Dare You!?”

 
Thursday morning, Embassy Protection Collective activists interrupted an address by Elliot Abrams, Trump’s point man for regime change in Venezuela, hosted by the Atlantic Council. The think tank is among the most powerful foreign policy influence shops in Washington and lobbies on behalf of NATO, Gulf State monarchies, and oil conglomerates.

Bearing a sign reading “No coup in Venezuela,” CODEPINK activist Ariel Elyse Gold shouted over Abrams as he attempted to speak.

Speaking to MintPress immediately after she was removed by security from the premises, Gold said:

Elliot Abrams is a war criminal and responsible for the destabilization of entire regions.

I spoke out while he was addressing the Atlantic Council and told him: ‘How dare you orchestrate a coup in Venezuela? How dare you impose sanctions that harm the people?’

Una activista de @codepink interrumpe a Elliott Abrams en un evento sobre #Venezuela en el Atlantic Council. pic.twitter.com/0kmkFaTxvw

— Helena Villar (@HelenaVillarRT) April 25, 2019

My government has no right to overthrow the government of another country. This is undermining the basic principle of democracy. Maduro was elected by 6 million people in Venezuela. Whether anybody likes Maduro or not, we need to respect the election.”

 

“We will not go out easily”

 
Medea Benjamin, one of the lead organizers of the movement to protect the embassy, explained the motivations of the collective to MintPress News, saying they are “people who came together to say we cannot allow the fake, illegal quote ‘government’ of Juan Guaido to come in and take over this embassy.” She added:

You can’t have an international community that doesn’t recognize real governments, that starts creating parallel governments, fake governments, and concedes them to take over embassies. It just can’t work like that. It’s against international law. So we’re the citizens that are protecting this embassy against a takeover that is part of a coup that is orchestrated by our government to get rid of a government that it doesn’t like in Venezuela.”

Benjamin explained how the U.S. demand that all Venezuelan diplomats leave the country by April 24th was a move designed to open the embassy to occupation by opposition squatters. In response, the collective has been living and working in the embassy 24/7 and hosting teach-ins and concerts every evening. They aim to hold the space for as long as possible, she says –“and we will not go out easily.”

After reaching out to the Venezuelan government in late March, Benjamin says they were invited to hold the space when the Venezuelans realized the U.S. government was “egging on” the opposition to take it. They gave the collective keys to the building and, she says, their full support.

Though many embassy protectors admire the accomplishments of socialist Venezuela, Benjamin says they aren’t there just to show support for the Venezuelan government. Instead, they want to reject another coup and the attempted social engineering of their leaders. She says the failure by coup plotters to turn the Venezuelan military against the government has done little to stop their U.S. handlers from plotting further aggression.

She notes the hypocrisy of a U.S. establishment that has spent the past few years hyper-fixating on a supposed Russian interference threat now “overtly trying to overthrow governments.” Benjamin was adamant that international law was on the side of the collective even if the Trump administration “doesn’t care” about such formalities.

 

“Now they have a place in their society”

 
Max Blumenthal, founder of the Grayzone, visited Caracas in February and described to MintPress News a profound disconnect between Western perceptions of Venezuela and the reality on the ground.

I was prepared to see something, to see an economic collapse, to even see a humanitarian crisis. And at least in Caracas, I didn’t see anything approaching that… it wasn’t a war situation. It wasn’t a conflict zone.”

Amidst ongoing economic warfare, life in Venezuela continues with relative normalcy, with residents taking full advantage of the free public gyms, salsa nights, and basketball courts, Blumenthal observed.

He described a “sort of utopian” experience visiting a public housing development in Caracas. It’s one of many such projects that comprise 2,500,000 total housing units provided by the socialist government to working Venezuelans free of charge, Blumenthal told MintPress.

He recounted that Venezuelan journalists he met with explained that they never could have become reporters without the socialist government, as prior to the Bolivarian revolution dark-skinned people weren’t allowed to go to college. “Now they have a place in their society.”

By contrast, Blumenthal says the opposition strongholds were like a “bubble of affluence.” Despite repeated accusations of a supposed humanitarian crisis, the largely white, wealthy opposition is still enjoying yoga classes and sushi dinners.  “They seem very comfortable, but at the same time feigning this humanitarian crisis.”

Still, Blumenthal notes that there are of course real economic problems, but stresses the many ways they’re exacerbated by capitalist forces and “speculation.”

Recently, the Grayzone exposed an off-the-record meeting in which 40-odd coup plotters discussed their plans for a military attack on Venezuela. Attendees included representatives from the U.S. State Department, the former commander of the United States Southern Command, Colombian diplomats, and emissaries of Brazil’s fascist government.

With that context, their plan to invade the Venezuelan Embassy is par for the course, Blumenthal argued.

As the property was purchased by the Venezuelan government, anyone occupying it without permission would be squatting, he said, joking that it is perhaps for that reason that “Juan Guaidó says he has so much in common with the Israeli government– because they like squatting on other people’s property.”

 

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The post Voices from Inside the Besieged Venezuelan Embassy appeared first on MintPress News.