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To rule Ukraine once more, the Orangists and their foreign backers have used and manipulated the ultra-nationalist elements of the population — some of which are openly anti-European Union — as their foot soldiers in an application of force against their democratically-elected opponents. Despite their views, the ultra-nationalists are actually more honest than the Orangist liberal figures like Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Unlike the misleading and utterly corrupt Orangist leaders, the ultra-nationalists do not hide their agendas and platforms.

The ultra-nationalists have inconsolably anti-Russian attitudes. Many of them also dislike a vast spectrum of other groups, including Jews, Armenians, Roma, Poles, Tatars, supporters of the Party of Regions and communists. In this context, it should come as no surprise that one of the first decisions that the post-coup regime in Kiev made was to remove the legal status of the Russian language as the regional language of half of Ukraine. Right Sector is, itself, a coalition of militant ultra-nationalists. These militants were instrumental in fighting government forces and taking over both government buildings in Kiev and regional governments in the western portion of Ukraine. Despite the protests of First Deputy Defense Minister Oleynik, Deputy Defense Minister Mozharovskiy and Defense Minister Babenk, Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s post-coup government has even given the ultra-nationalist opposition militias official status within the Ukrainian military and security forces. Yatsenyuk and the Orangists also dismissed all the officials that protested that the move would fracture the country and make the political divide in Ukraine irreversible.

Several members of Svoboda have been given key cabinet and government posts. One of the two junior deputy prime ministers, or assistant deputy prime ministers, is Oleksandr Sych. The ministry of agriculture and food has been given for management to Ihor Shvaika. The environment and natural resources ministry has been assigned to Andry/Andriy Mokhnyk. The defense minister is Ihor Tenyukh, a former admiral in the Ukrainian Navy who obstructed Russian naval movements in Sevastopol during the Russo-Georgian War over South Ossetia and who was later dismissed by the Ukrainian government for insubordination. Oleh Makhnitsky, another member of Svoboda, has been assigned as the new prosecutor-general of Ukraine by the coup government. Andry Parubiy, one of the founders of Svoboda, is now the post-coup secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (RNBO). He was the man controlling the so-called “Euromaidan security forces” that fought government forces in Kiev. His job as secretary is to represent the president and act on his behalf in coordinating and implementing the RNBO’s decisions. As a figure, Parubiy clearly illustrates how the mainstream opposition in Ukraine is integrated with the ultra-nationalists. Parubiy is an Orangist and was a leader in the Orange Revolution. He has changed parties several times. After founding Svoboda, he joined Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine before joining Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party and being elected as one of the Fatherland Party’s deputies, or members of parliament.

While the mainstream media in North America and the EU look the other way about the ultra-nationalists in the coup government in Kiev, the facts speak for themselves. Both the EU and the U.S. governments have rubbed their elbows with the ultra-nationalists. Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda (formerly the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine), was even part of the opposition triumvirate that all the U.S. and EU officials visiting Kiev met with while performing their political pilgrimages to Ukraine to encourage the protesters to continue with their demonstrations and riots demanding Euro-Atlantic integration. Svoboda has popularly been described as a neo-Nazi grouping. The World Jewish Congress has demanded that Svoboda be banned. The ultra-nationalist party was even condemned by the EU’s own European Parliament, which passed a motion on Dec. 13, 2012 categorically condemning Svoboda.

The ultra-nationalists are such an integral part of the mainstream opposition that the U.S.-supported Orangist president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, posthumously awarded the infamous Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera the title and decoration of the “Hero of Ukraine” in 2010. Foreign audiences, however, would not know that if they relied on reportage from the likes of the U.S. state-run Radio Free Europe, which tried to protect Yushchenko because he wanted to reorient Ukraine toward the U.S. and EU. Parubiy also lobbied the European Parliament not to oppose Yushchenko’s decision. Other smaller ultra-nationalists parties were also given government posts, and several of the independent cabinet members are also aligned to these parties. Dmytro Yarosh from Right Sector (Pravyi Sektor) is the deputy secretary of the RNBO, and the Trizub Party was given the education ministry. Trizub had Sergey Kvit appointed to the post of education minister.

The role of the ultra-nationalists in executing the coup has been essentially ignored by the mainstream media in North America and the EU. The roots of the bloodshed in Kiev have been ignored, too. The shootings of protesters by snipers have simply been presented as the vile actions of the Ukrainian government, never taking into consideration the agitation of the armed ultra-nationalist gangs and the mainstream opposition leaders for a conflict. According to a leaked telephone conversation on Feb. 26 between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and European Union Commissionaire Catherine Ashton, which was leaked by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) , the snipers who shot at protesters and police in Kiev were allegedly hired by Ukrainian opposition leaders. Estonian Foreign Minister Paet made the statements on the basis of details he was given by one of the head doctors of the medical team of the anti-government protests, Olga Bogomolets, an opponent of Viktor Yanukovych’s government who wanted it removed from power. Paet tells Ashton the following first: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” This is also corroborated by the fact that Yanukovych actually had ordered the Ukrainian riot police and security forces not to use lethal force.

The Estonian official then mentions that it was verified to him that the same snipers were killing people on both sides. He tells Ashton the following: “And second, what was quite disturbing, this same Olga [Bogomolets] told as well that all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides.” Another important point that Paet makes to Ashton is the following: “[Dr. Olga Bogomolets] then also showed me some photos she said that as a medical doctor she can say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened.” Past reports that the mainstream media were hostile to the ousted Ukrainian government also raise serious questions that corroborate what has been said about the snipers intentionally killing protesters to instigate regime change.

The Telegraph reported on Feb. 20 that “[a]t least three of the bodies displayed single bullet wounds to the heads,” and “were shot in the head, the neck or the heart. None were shot anywhere else like in the legs.” This means that the snipers were making kill shots by design, which seems like the last thing that the Ukrainian government would want to do when it was trying to appease the protesters and bring calm to Kiev. The Ukrainian journalist Alexey Yaroshevsky’s account of the sniper shootings is also worth noting, and it is backed up by footage taken by his Russian crew in Kiev.  Their footage shows armed opposition members running away from the scene of the shooting of anti-government protesters. What comes across as unusual is that the armed members of the opposition were constantly agitating to start firefights at every opportunity that they could get.

The commandant of the SSU, Major-General Oleksandr Yakimenko, has testified that his counter-intelligence forces were monitoring the CIA in Ukraine during the protests. According to the SSU, the CIA was active on the ground in Kiev and collaborating with a small circle of opposition figures. Yakimenko has also said that it was not the police or government forces that fired on the protesters, but snipers from the Philharmonic Building that was controlled by the opposition leader Andriy Parubiy, which he asserts was interacting with the CIA. Speaking to the Russian media, Yakimenko said that 20 men wearing “special combat clothes” and carrying “sniper rifle cases, as well as AKMs with scopes” ran out of the opposition-controlled Philharmonic Building and split into two groups of 10 people, with one taking position at the Ukraine Hotel. The anti-government protesters even saw this and asked Ukrainian police to pursue them, and even figures from Right Sector and Svoboda asked Yakimenko’s SSU to investigate and apprehend them, but Parubiy prevented it. Major-General Yakimenko has categorically stated that opposition leaders were behind the shootings. Following the release of the conversation between Paet and Ashton, the Estonian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the leak was authentic, whereas the European Commission kept silent. The mainstream media in North America and the EU either ignored it or said very little. The Telegraph even claimed that Dr. Bogomolets told it that she had not treated any government forces even though she contradicts this directly in an interview with CNN where says she treated military personnel.

CNN, on the other hand, quickly glossed over the story, giving it only enough attention to create the impression that the network is fairly covering the news. Opting not to give the story the airtime that it deserved, CNN instead posted it on its webpage. The conversation is immediately discredited, undermined and dismissed in the first sentence of the article, which is attributed to Foreign Minister Paet: “Don’t read too much into the conversation.” The article was deliberately structured by CNN to undermine the important information that would challenge the narrative that the U.S. mainstream media have been painting. The title, sub-titles and opening sentences of most texts act as microcosms or summaries of the articles, and in many cases, readers evaluate or decide to read the articles on the basis of what these texts communicate. Moreover, the first sentence of the article sets the tempo for readers and and influences their opinion, too. Although anyone who listens to the conversation between Paet and Ashton and considers the evidence that is being discussed would realize just how important the news was, the message being set forth by CNN was a dismissive one.

In another alleged phone recording highlighted by the President of the National Assembly, the Caracas president of COPEI Antonio Ecarri and the secretary general Rogelio Diaz consider the option of a coup against President Nicolas Maduro.In a recording dated February 21, Ecarri asks Diaz if he received the message from national secretary general Herberto Diaz and then goes on to state that, "one cannot have a double posture in life, if you are going to abandon the electoral field, you are going to call openly for a coup and everything else, that's fine, that is a path [...] I say we must look for a different mechanism."Diaz agrees with Ecarri's affirmation that while a coup represents a legitimate "path", a "different mechanism" is needed, adding that otherwise, "we put everything on the table and they put us in jail.The conversation ends with the two leaders agreeing on the need to "promote street activity".

Nonetheless, since February 2014, opposition "street activity" has largely taken the form of violent protests, which resulted in the death of 43 people last year as well as millions of dollars in damages to public property.On Tuesday, Public Ministry officials discovered a weapons cache at COPEI headquarters in Las Palmas, Caracas. Among the weapons found were 52 homemade explosive devices resembling a type of grenade, 32 molotov cocktails, and four gas masks.Officials also discovered various pamphlets with messages expressing support for Metropolitan Mayor Antonio Ledezma in the wake of his arrest on charges of conspiracy and sedition.

In the same program on Wednesday, Diosdado Cabello also unveiled a recording of the alleged confession of First Lieutenant Luis Lugo Calderón, revealing further details regarding the thwarted coup effort earlier this month.During his interrogation, the Air Force Lieutenant confirmed the existence of a video intended to be the "preamble" to the coup, "calling on the superior officers to wake up, asking for the renunciation of the President of the Republic, and saying that the lower officers were against the government."Lugo further elaborated that the video was to be disseminated outside the country by the Miami-based journalist Patricia Poleo around the time of Carnival, when vast numbers of Venezuelans travel to the beach and other parts of the country.The officer also substantiated allegations that coup plotters intended to use a "Super Tucano" counter-insurgency aircraft to bomb numerous ground targets such as the Miraflores Palace, teleSur, and the Ministry of Defense.

Identifying himself as the intended pilot of the military aircraft, he added that among the targets were air force bases located in highly populated cities, including the La Carlota base in the wealthy Caracas neighborhood of Chacao as well as the the Sucre base in the city of Maracay in Aragua State.Furthermore, the Lieutenant indicated that he had been approached by an official from the British embassy with an offer of asylum in the event that the coup failed, though he did not give further details.

Although details surrounding Ledezma’s exact role in the recently discovered “Blue” coup plot are still unclear, it appears that the opposition politician is implicated beyond his call for a transitional government.  Following the announcement of the coup plot last Thursday, the Maduro administration suggested that further arrests were to be made once there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the political ringleaders of the plan.  “In these intelligence investigations, we have discovered a codified message, in another language,  by an important leader of a party. On translating it, we found that it gave the details, the elements of the coup. We are about to capture the person who brought the script that they were going to read, the script they were going to read out was already written, and circulated by a person who I will name at the correct moment”, said Maduro, referencing a preplanned statement which was to be read out to the public following the aerial bombardment, announcing a “rebellion” of the armed forces against the government. 

It is not the first time that Ledezma has been implicated in a plan to violently overthrow the government. In 2002, he participated in an attempted coup which saw socialist president of the time, Hugo Chavez, ousted for a period of 47 hours. Last year, he was also named several times as a “principal ally” by currently detained terror plotter, Lorent Saleh. Saleh was one of the main underground activists fuelling the armed barricades known as guarimbas which last year claimed the lives of at least 43 Venezuelans. He had planned to go on a killing spree with the help of Colombian paramilitaries but was arrested before the plan could take place.  

Popularly known as “the vampire”, Ledezma began his political career in 1973 as a member of the “Democratic Action” Party. In 1989, he infamously became Governor of the Federal District of Caracas, when he oversaw one of the most violent periods in the history of the Caracas Metropolitan Police.  The police body, which was since disbanded in 2010 due to its human rights violations, regularly opened fire on unarmed student protests, systematically repressed street vendors, pensioners and the unemployed, as well as regularly disappeared political activists.   During this period he also oversaw the “Caracazo,” when up to 3000 people were killed and disappeared by security forces in the wake of violent protests against a government imposed austerity programme.  This particular period of Ledezma’s career earnt him the reputation of “student killer” amongst working class Venezuelans. He is founder and current leader of the rightwing party known as the “Brave People’s Alliance”. 

However, we might not need to wait that long. Last week, the National Anti Corruption Commission found evidence for 308 lawmakers to be charged for supporting a bill that looked to amend certain workings of the government. According to at least one interpretation of the constitution, all those members are now – or will be – suspended, leaving a vacuum that, again, the army may feel obligated to fill. And the rumours don’t stop at coups. There is talk of civil war, of a divided country: the north, run from Chiang Mai (where Yingluck lives when she's not in Bangkok), versus those in the south, in Bangkok – the power base of the opposition and current protest movement. It could happen. It could all spiral out of control and there could be widespread bloodshed. But it's unlikely. This isn’t a grassroots revolution where the masses are rising up against the ruling, power-hungry elite. These are heavily invested, largely middle-class members of society who would have nothing to gain from a crumbling nation.

Instead, according to long-term observers of Thailand's political landscape, this whole affair is about more than removing the present government. They suggest it's wrapped up in what will happen when the current – and deeply revered – king dies, but due to Thailand’s strict lèse-majesté law, not much more can be said on the matter. Internationally, Thailand is too deeply integrated into the global community for it to fall into bloody conflict unnoticed. It’s not a pariah state, nor a country shielding itself from globalisation or the winds of international opinion. Earlier today, for the first time, it was reported that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been holding talks between Yingluck and the leader of the opposition party in an effort to help them bridge their differences. Ultimately, though, nobody knows what is going to happen. The city has been busily preparing itself for the shutdown, with schools closing, public transport routes bolstered and measures underway to help maintain some semblance of normalcy. The US Embassy in Thailand recently updated their own travel advice, suggesting that their citizens living in Bangkok stock up on food and supplies for the next two weeks. However, most people are just waiting to see what happens, with few precautions being taken by local businesses and no reports of a rush on shops.

So the shutdown could be a major inconvenience and nothing more, or it could be the start of a whole new violent chapter for Thailand. At the very least, next week should provide a little more clarity on where Thailand is headed amid its current political turmoil.

Explaining more details of Washington’s scheme to oust him forcefully. “Almost all (opposition) leaders knew about this plan, this ambush, almost all of them, including the four-time losing candidate,” Maduro explained. Referring to Henrique Capriles Radonski. One of many Venezuelan fascists wanting power back the old-fashioned way. “I’m not saying all of them were actively involved,” Maduro said. “But it was a rumor circulating amongst them, that something was about to happen. Figures arrested confessed to the plot, Maduro explained. They provided more evidence of Washington’s scheme. It involved enlisting Venezuelan political and military officials. Bribing them with large cash payments. America’s Caracas embassy was coup plot headquarters. Maduro called on Obama to stop interfering in Venezuelan affairs, saying: “In your name, they are organizing coup plots against (Venezuela’s) democratically elected government…” Bolivian President Evo Morales expressed solidarity with Maduro saying “(w)e all have the obligation to enforce respect for democracy and elections, and if we have a clear conscious, not even the empire can defeat us.”

Maduro received numerous other messages of support. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega condemned the “criminal and futile attempts of the empire to undermine the Bolivarian Revolution.” From Mexico City, the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity expressed solidarity in an official statement. It condemned plans to topple Venezuela’s government. TeleSUR reported civil and political organizations worldwide expressing solidarity with Venezuela. Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) Secretary General Ernesto Samper denounced plans to oust Maduro. Venezuelan opposition spokesman Jesus Torrealba lied saying “(t)he government makes up these stories about coups to avoid talking about how the country is breaking down.”

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki lied calling accusations about Washington plotting Maduro’s ouster “ridiculous.” She absurdly added: “(T)he United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means.” “Political transitions must be democratic, constitutional, peaceful, and legal.” “We have seen many times that the Venezuelan Government tries to distract from its own actions by blaming the United States or other members of the international community for events inside Venezuela. These efforts reflect a lack of seriousness on the part of the Venezuelan Government to deal with the grave situation it faces.”

But also there was just a slice of real news in The Saker’s article, when he said, only in passing (as if it were insignificant, which it was not), “Then, there was the rather interesting behavior of [Victoria] Nuland, who was with Kerry’s delegation, she refused to speak to the press and left looking rather unhappy.” Nothing more than that, but that’s plenty. In other words: Nuland, the agent whom President Obama had placed in charge of arranging the February 2014 coup in Ukraine, and of selecting the leader of the junta that would be imposed upon Ukraine (“Yats” Yatsenyuk), and who told the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine what to do and how to do it, was now exceedingly disturbed to find herself overridden at this late date in her Ukrainian escapade, publicly overridden by her own immediate boss, Secretary of State Kerry.  In other words: she is now sidelined. That’s important news, but The Saker there merely hinted at it, and only in passing. So, as a news-report, The Saker’s article was poor but perhaps the best around; but as a news-analysis, it was excellent, and by far the best.

Nuland now knows that she has lost, and that Obama has thrown in the towel on the original plan for Ukraine, which had been for an all-out military conquest of the region, Donbass, where the people had voted over 90% for the man whom Nuland’s team had overthrown on 22 February 2014, Viktor Yanukovych, and so Obama had wanted those people to be either killed or else expelled from Ukraine (so that they’d never again be able to vote in a Ukrainian national election and thus possibly restore a neutralist leadership of Ukraine, such as had existed under the man Obama deposed, Yanukovych). Consequently, clearly, now, Obama is on-board with the “Plan B” for Ukraine, which Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel had put into place, the Minsk II Agreement, which brought about the present ceasefire, which now has become clearly the utter (even accepted by Kerry) capitulation of Obama’s Plan A on Ukraine, which plan Nuland had been carrying out. Kerry’s public statement there was a public slap in the face to his own #2 official on Ukraine; and it could not have been asserted by him if he were not under Obama’s instruction that the previous plan, to exterminate or drive out all the residents of Donbass, was no longer worth trying, and that the Hollande-Merkel plan would be America’s fall-back position.

Obama’s message in this, through Kerry, to Ukraine’s President Poroshenko, and indirectly also to Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yatsenyuk (the leader whom Nuland herself had selected), is: we’ll back you only as long as you accept that you have failed our military expectations and that we will be stricter with you in the future regarding how you spend our military money. We’re getting in line now behind the Hollande-Merkel peace plan for Ukraine. Dmitriy Yarosh, and the other outright nazis who had been threatening to overthrow Poroshenko if he doesn’t renew the war against Donbass and seize Crimea; Dmitriy Yarosh, who was the man who had led the Ukrainian coup for the U.S., and whose thugs had dressed as Yanukovych’s security forces when gunning down both police and demonstrators in the February 2014 coup, in order for Yanukovych to become blamed for the bloodshed on that occasion; is now, in effect, being told: if you will try another coup, this time to overthrow our own stooges in Ukraine, then you’re finished, Mr. Yarosh. Don’t do it.

Merkel and Hollande thus won. Putin had decidedly won. Obama and the nazis he had empowered in Ukraine have now, clearly, been defeated. But the mess that Obama’s people have created in Ukraine by their coup and subsequent ethnic-cleansing to eliminate the residents of Donbass, will take decades, if ever, to repair. Western ‘news’ media can cover it all up, but they can’t change this reality, which, increasingly as time goes by, will expose the press’s failure to have even reported on this historically important U.S. coup in Ukraine and its ultimate failure. As a story about  the press, it is about yet another system-wide press-deceit upon the public, comparable to their ‘news coverage’ of ‘Saddam’s WMD,’ and other lies, in 2002 and 2003. 

Juan Ramon Quintana, Bolivia’s minister of the presidency, emphasized the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia’s direct role in the plot, according to teleSUR: “In 2007 the embassy of the United States installed a Center of Operations in order to execute a civil-prefectural coup to apply plan A, which was the coup, and plan B, which was the assassination.” TeleSUR noted that, “Relations between the U.S. and Bolivia have been strained since 2009, when President Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador from the country for supporting [an] opposition-led conspiracy against him,” a move that led then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to accuse the president of “fear-mongering.”

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s Supreme Court has upheld the regional court decisions, prompting the CNE to likewise suspend next week’s collection drive on Thursday. The move could mean the MUD will have to restart the entire process in the four states where fraud allegations surface. Such an outcome would be a major setback for the MUD, which has been aiming to organise the referendum before the end of the year. This goal has long been dismissed as unrealistic by the CNE, which announced last month that the plebiscite could be held no sooner than April. The ultimate timing of the referendum is critical for the opposition. If Maduro loses a vote before January 10, snap elections will be held, and the socialists would face the prospect of losing the office of president for the first time in 14 years. The last time the right-wing took power was during a short lived, US backed coup in 2002. However, if the referendum takes place after January 10, Maduro will simply be replaced by his vice-president until regular elections are held in 2018.

The Macedonian police were clearly well-informed before they launched their operation. According to the Minister for the Interior, Ivo Kotevski, the group was preparing a very important operation for the 17th May (the date of the demonstration organised by the Albanophone opposition in Skopje). The identification of the suspects has made it possible to determine that they were almost all ex-members of the UÇK (Kosovo Liberation Army) [1].

Among them were : • Sami Ukshini, known as « Commandant Sokoli », whose family played a historic rôle in the UÇK. • Rijai Bey, ex-bodyguard of Ramush Haradinaj (himself a drug trafficker, military head of the UÇK, then Prime Minister of Kosovo. He was twice condemned for war crimes by the International Penal Tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia, but was acquitted because 9 crucial witnesses were murdered during the trial). • Dem Shehu, currently bodyguard for the Albanophone leader and founder of the BDI party, Ali Ahmeti. • Mirsad Ndrecaj, known as the « NATO Commandant », grandson of Malic Ndrecaj, who is commander of the 132nd Brigade of the UÇK. The principal leaders of this operation, including Fadil Fejzullahu (killed during the assault), are close to the United States ambassador in Skopje, Paul Wohlers.

To eliminate any doubt about the identity of the operation’s sponsors, the General Secretary of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, intervened even before the assault was over - not to declare his condemnation of terrorism and his support for the constitutional government of Macedonia, but to paint a picture of the terrorist group as a legitimate ethnic opposition : « I am following the events in Kumanovo with deep concern. I would like to express my sympathy to the families of those who were killed or wounded. It is important that all polititcal and community leaders work together to restore order and begin a transparent investigation in order to find out what happened. I am calling for everyone to show reserve and avoid any new escalation of violence, in the intersts of the nation and also the whole region. » You would have to be blind not to understand.

In January 2015, Macedonia foiled an attempted coup d’état organised for the head of the opposition, the social-democrat Zoran Zaev. Four peole were arrested, and Mr. Zaev had his passport confiscated, while the Atlantist press began its denunciation of an « authoritarian drift by the régime » (sic). Zoran Zaev is publicly supported by the embassies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Holland. But the only trace left of this attempted coup d’état indicates the repsponsibility of the US. On the 17th May, Zoran Zaev’s social-democrat party (SDSM) [2] was supposed to organise a demonstration. It intended to distribute 2,000 masks in order to prevent the police from identifying the terrorists taking part in the march. During the demonstration, the armed group, concealed behind their masks, were supposed to attack several institutions and launch a pseudo-« revolution » comparable to the events in Maidan Square, Kiev.

This coup d’État was coordinated by Mile Zechevich, an ex-employee of one of George Soros’ foundations. In order to understand Washington’s urgency to overthrow the Macedonian government, we have to go back and look at the gas pipeline war. Because international politics is a huge chess-board on which every move by any piece causes consequences for all the others.

The United States have been attempting to sever communications between Russia and the European Union since 2007. They managed to sabotage the projet South Stream by obliging Bulgaria to cancel its participation, but on the 1st December 2014, to everyone’s surprise, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a new project when he succeeded in convincing his Turkish opposite number, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to sign an agreement with him, despite the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO [3]. It was agreed that Moscow would deliver gas to Ankara, and that in return, Ankara would deliver gas to the European Union, thus bypassing the anti-Russian embargo by Brussels. On the 18th of April 2015, the new Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsípras, gave his agreement that the pipeline could cross his country [4] . As for Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, he had already conluded discrete negotiations last March [5]. Finally, Serbia, which had been a partner in the South Stream project, indicated to the Russian Minister for Energy Aleksandar Novak, during his reception in Belgrade in April, that Serbia was ready to switch to the Turkish Stream project [6].

To halt the Russian project, Washington has multiplied its initiatives :  in Turkey, it is supporting the CHP against President Erdoğan, hoping this will cause him to lose the elections;  in Greece, on the 8th May, it sent Amos Hochstein, Directeur of the Bureau of Energy Ressources, to demand that the Tsípras government give up its agreement with Gazprom;  it plans – just in case – to block the route of the pipeline by placing one of its puppets in power in Macedonia;  and in Serbia, it has restarted the project for the secession of the small piece of territory - Voïvodine - which allows the junction with Hungary [7]. Last comment, but not the least: Turkish Stream will also supply Hungary and Austria, thus ending the alternative project negotiated by the United States with President Hassan Rohani (against the advice of the Revolutionary Guards) for supplying them with Iranian gas [8].

While most journalists have been too intimidated to report details, and media have largely been put under State control, it has transpired that police has dispersed non-violent protests throughout the country. In some cases police used disproportionate violence and water cannons. “The heads of 100 nongovernmental organizations wanted to come and make statements here (in front of the parliament). But now you see, parliament is under blockade, the roads are closed, there is a TOMA (a water cannon vehicle). We are under siege,” said Aykut Erdogdu, a lawmaker of the Republican people’s Party – CHP. He added: “It is very wrong to block parliament on the eve of such an important constitutional change that will be discussed in parliament.” Erdogdu stressed that the CHP’s parliamentary group will attempt to prolong and if possible stall the “constitutional reform” by issuing proposals and non-confidence motions in order to emphasize their opposition. CHP Deputy Group Chair Özgür Özel, for his part, told the press: “We think that the longer this process is going to be, the more useful it will be, the more likely these mistakes will be realized, and the constitutional proposal will be completely withdrawn.” He added that the discussions which prolonged the process in the parliamentary commission were fruitful in that they created awareness about the importance of the amendment. “We will give speeches on the entire constitutional amendment and then on each item. In addition, we may also propose that the material be removed from the text because it is contrary to the constitution,” Özel added. The governing, Islamist AKP Group’s Deputy Chairperson Mustafa Elitaş, for his part, criticized the CHP’s plan to suggest it would appeal the amendments on the grounds that they are anti-constitutional. He noted that: “The parliamentary spokesperson should not issue that contradiction to the constitution proposal because after the constitution has changed, it will become the material of the constitution”.

Semih Yalçın, the MHP deputy leader, also opposed the CHP’s criticism that the amendment would pave the way for a federal system and ultimately the division of the country. Yalçın noted in a written statement that with the efforts of the MHP, the unitary character of the country had been protected and that all the possibilities that would lead to a regime change or division had been eliminated. The AKP and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) block is making a special effort to prevent any defections from their parties in an effort to reach the 330 votes needed to bring the constitution to the referendum. The total number of votes of the two parties reaches 355, but seven lawmakers from the MHP have already publicly declared their opposition to the package. On Monday Filiz Kerestecioğlu, the Peoples Democracy Party (HDP) Group’s Deputy Chairperson, stressed that the HDP would say “no” to the constitution, adding that the HDP would try to make sure that the lawmakers vote in a secret ballot, despite pressures from the ruling party. He added: “We believe that some lawmakers who have the possibility to say ‘no’ will be pressured by other lawmakers; the government will use man-to-man marking.” The HDP now decided to boycott the vote.

On February 28, President Maduro announced new measures imposing a reciprocal travel visa requirements on U.S. citizens seeking to enter Venezuela as well as mandating a reduction in U.S. embassy staff to levels that match the number of Venezuelan personnel in Washington. Maduro also announced the creation of an "anti-terrorist list" of individuals barred from entering Venezuela, which will include former U.S. officials such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who have reportedly "committed human rights violations."   Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Delcy Rodriguez, has confirmed that the Bolivarian government will soon issue an official response to the order. 

Following his meeting with government representatives on Wednesday, Shannon convened with members of the Venezuelan opposition coalition the “Roundtable of Democratic Unity” (MUD) at the U.S. embassy headquarters before flying back to Washington on Thursday. The MUD has confirmed that the purpose of the meeting was to talk to Shannon about “the release of political prisoners,” Venezuela’s human rights situation and the country’s upcoming legislative elections. “Following the summit (of the Americas), there will be a more active U.S. presence along with UNASUR foreign ministers and other actors, with a view to bringing about an electoral and peaceful way out of the Venezuelan crisis,” stated MUD secretary, Jesus Torrealba, who added that Shannon had confirmed that Washington would be “more emphatic” about addressing alleged “human rights abuses” in Venezuela following this week’s summit. According to the secretary, Washington is currently concerned that “a critical situation in Venezuela would not just affect Venezuelans, but that it would have an impact on the whole region”. The MUD also handed over an “updated human rights report” to Shannon before the closed meeting came to an end by 11am.

Despite his warm welcome from the Venezuelan opposition, U.S. diplomat Shannon was greeted with a cool reception by the country’s alternative media, which were reticent about the envoy’s speckled diplomatic history. Over the past few days, various articles have been circulating on the internet noting the diplomat’s links to Latin American and Caribbean countries which have experienced U.S. backed coups during the last fifteen years. According to reports and Wikileak cables, Shannon was present in Honduras in the months following the coup which ousted Manuel Zelaya in 2009, and played an extensive role in US- Haiti relations following the second ousting of elected leftist president, Jean Bertrand Aristide in 2004. The diplomat worked at the U.S. embassy in Caracas for three years between 1996-1999.

In February, protestors in Catia on the west side of Caracas known for its working class roots also took-over Polar distribution trucks to demand that the company stop hoarding basic food and goods.

If a leader seeks to defend his or her nation’s sovereignty by such means as requiring these NGOs to register as “foreign agents,” the offending government is accused of violating “human rights” and becomes a candidate for more aggressive “regime change.”Currently, one of the big U.S. complaints against Russia is that it requires foreign-funded NGOs that seek to influence policy decisions to register as “foreign agents.” The New York Times and other Western publications have cited this 2012 law as proof that Russia has become a dictatorship, while ignoring the fact that the Russians modeled their legislation after a U.S. law known as the “Foreign Agent Registration Act.”So, it’s okay for the U.S. to label people who are paid by foreign entities to influence U.S. policies as “foreign agents” – and to imprison people who fail to register – but not for Russia to do the same. A number of these NGOs in Russia and elsewhere also are not “independent” entities but instead are financed by the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

There is even a circular element to this U.S. complaint. Leading the denunciation of Russia and other governments that restrain these U.S.-financed NGOs is Freedom House, which marks down countries on its “freedom index” when they balk at letting in this back-door U.S. influence. However, over the past three decades, Freedom House has become essentially a subsidiary of NED, a bought-and-paid-for NGO itself.

That takeover began in earnest in 1983 when CIA Director William Casey was focused on creating a funding mechanism to support Freedom House and other outside groups that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and financed covertly. Casey helped shape the plan for a congressionally funded entity that would serve as a conduit for this U.S. government money.But Casey recognized the need to hide the CIA’s strings. “Obviously we here [at CIA] should not get out front in the development of such an organization, nor should we appear to be a sponsor or advocate,” Casey said in one undated letter to then-White House counselor Edwin Meese III – as Casey urged creation of a “National Endowment.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “CIA’s Hidden Hand in ‘Democracy’ Groups.”]Casey’s planning led to the 1983 creation of NED, which was put under the control of neoconservative Carl Gershman, who remains in charge to this day. Gershman’s NED now distributes more than $100 million a year, which included financing scores of activists, journalists and other groups inside Ukraine before last year’s coup and now pays for dozens of projects in Venezuela, the new emerging target for “regime change.”

But NED’s cash is only a part of how the U.S. government manipulates events in vulnerable countries. In Ukraine, prior to the February 2014 coup, neocon Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their “European aspirations.”Nuland then handpicked who would be the new leadership, telling U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt that “Yats is the guy,” referring to “free market” politician Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who not surprisingly emerged as the new prime minister after a violent coup ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014.The coup also started a civil war that has claimed more than 6,000 lives, mostly ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine who had supported Yanukovych and were targeted for a ruthless “anti-terrorist operation” spearheaded by neo-Nazi and other far-right militias dispatched by the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev. But Nuland blames everything on Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Nuland’s Mastery of Ukraine Propaganda.”]On top of Ukraine’s horrific death toll, the country’s economy has largely collapsed, but Nuland, Yatsenyuk and other free-marketeers have devised a solution, in line with the wishes of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund: Austerity for the average Ukrainian.

Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Nuland hailed “reforms” to turn Ukraine into a “free-market state,” including decisions “to reduce and cap pension benefits, increase work requirements and phase in a higher retirement age; … [and] cutting wasteful gas subsidies.”In other words, these “reforms” are designed to make the hard lives of average Ukrainians even harder – by slashing pensions, removing work protections, forcing people to work into their old age and making them pay more for heat during the winter.‘Sharing’ the Wealth In exchange for those “reforms,” the IMF approved $17.5 billion in aid that will be handled by Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who until last December was a former U.S. diplomat responsible for a U.S. taxpayer-financed $150 million investment fund for Ukraine that was drained of money as she engaged in lucrative insider deals – deals that she has fought to keep secret. Now, Ms. Jaresko and her cronies will get a chance to be the caretakers of more than 100 times more money. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Finance Minister’s American ‘Values.’”]

Other prominent Americans have been circling around Ukraine’s “democratic” opportunities. For instance, Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was named to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private gas firm, a shadowy Cyprus-based company linked to Privat Bank.Privat Bank is controlled by the thuggish billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, who was appointed by the Kiev regime to be governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a south-central province of Ukraine. In this tribute to “democracy,” the U.S.-backed Ukrainian authorities gave an oligarch his own province to rule. Kolomoysky also has helped finance paramilitary forces killing ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.Burisma has been lining up well-connected American lobbyists, too, some with ties to Secretary of State John Kerry, including Kerry’s former Senate chief of staff David Leiter, according to lobbying disclosures.As Time magazine reported, “Leiter’s involvement in the firm rounds out a power-packed team of politically-connected Americans that also includes a second new board member, Devon Archer, a Democratic bundler and former adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Both Archer and Hunter Biden have worked as business partners with Kerry’s son-in-law, Christopher Heinz, the founding partner of Rosemont Capital, a private-equity company.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Whys Behind the Ukraine Crisis.”]