WOLA: Mediaâs âLeftâ Source for Pro-Coup Propaganda in Venezuela

Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond
From Venezuela and made by Venezuelan Chavistas
By Lucas Koerner – Jun 4, 2020
The mass media, as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman documented decades ago, are structurally dependent on pre-ordained âexperts,â who play a decisive role in filtering the information reaching the public.
When it comes to Venezuela, one DC-based think tank has become the Western mediaâs go-to source for confirming the US eliteâs regime change groupthink (FAIR.org, 4/30/19): the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
Styling itself the âleading source for independent analysis and commentary on Latin America,â WOLA is regularly cited in corporate media reporting on Venezuela across the media spectrum. Founded in 1974 and originally part of the progressive Central American solidarity movement, WOLA moved to the right in the 1990s, until by 2002 it was calling (12/02) for a ânegotiated and peaceful settlementâ to the âpolitical impasseâ in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez had been reelected with 60% of the vote two years earlier. But WOLAâs âprogressiveâ reputationâbased on its decades-old critiques of Reagan administration Central America policyâstill allows it to position itself as the gatekeeper of legitimate âoppositionâ to US Latin America policy.
WOLAâs in-house Venezuela âexpertsââTulane University sociologist David Smilde and former Open Society Latin Americanist Geoff Ramseyâexcel at disseminating polite, proceduralist criticisms of US policy while validating the imperial assumptions that justify Washingtonâs aggression. They demarcate the leftmost extreme of acceptable opinion on Venezuela, effectively boxing out any genuinely dissenting views.
The Trump administration on March 31 unveiled a âdemocratic transitionâ plan to replace Venezuelaâs Maduro government with a five-person junta composed of opposition and ruling party loyalists, in defiance of the countryâs constitution.
The corporate media dutifully touted the reasonableness of the Mafia-like âoffer,â unanimously ignoring Washingtonâs threat to ramp up deadly economic sanctions until Maduro cried uncle (FAIR.org, 4/15/20).
Apparently concerned that its blackmail was too subtle, the Trump administration announced the next day, April 1, an âanti-drugâ operation in the Caribbean targeting Venezuela, which was widely reported as one of the largest military deployments in the region since the USâs 1989 invasion of Panama.
The âtransitionâ plan and military escalation came just days after the US Department of Justice on March 26 unsealed ânarco-terrorismâ indictments against Maduro and other top Caracas officials, including a $15 million bounty on the Venezuelan leaderâs head.
Like clockwork, WOLA stepped in to rationalize US policy, even while quibbling with some of its âcontradictoryâ elements.
Smilde and Abraham Lowenthal of the Woodrow Wilson Center, writing in the Washington Post (4/14/20), applauded the Trump administrationâs gunpoint âproposalâ as a âstep in the right direction.â
The authors notably refused to call for rescinding the indictmentsâwhich they acknowledged were part of a politicized pressure campaignâor easing illegal US sanctions in a bid to secure Chavista buy-in for the plan. Instead, they urged Washington, represented by war criminal Elliott Abrams (CounterSpin, 3/1/19), to offer âguarantees for indicted officialsâ against extradition, as if Maduro would resign his elected post with a $15 million price on his head and a US fleet on his doorstep.
Ramsey had likewise taken to the Post editorial page (3/27/20) a few weeks earlier to gently criticize the ânarco-terrorismâ charges as feckless and politically motivated, but he conceded their core premise that Venezuela is essentially a narco-state:
Thereâs no question that organized criminal elements, including drug-trafficking organizations and Colombian guerrilla groups, have penetrated state institutions in Venezuela. The allegations are not surprising given the clear corruption and authoritarianism of the Maduro regime, and they are serious.
Ramsey presented no evidence to support these significant claims, merely linking to another Post op-ed (7/5/19) by Venezuelan emigre blogger Francisco Toro, whose main source regarding Colombian guerrilla activity in Venezuela is none other than the Colombian government, which was caught lying on that very subject last year.
Ramsey levels such accusations against Venezuela without saying a word about his own governmentâs well-documented role in abetting drug money laundering, and waging imperial dirty wars in league with narcotics traffickers, among any number of other examples of systemic US lawlessness.
Compared to gangster states like the US, the Maduro âregimeââwhich was reelected in 2018 by a greater percentage of the electorate than Trump in 2016 or Obama in 2012âis infinitely less âcorruptâ and âauthoritarian.â Western liberals and leftistsâ refusal to acknowledge this reflects imperial indoctrination and arrogance (FAIR.org, 2/12/20).
Indeed, for Ramsey, Washingtonâs sin is not its sixth coup attempt in 20 years against an elected government, but its âbaseless optimismâ: its belief âthat if they just saber-rattle hard enough, the Maduro regime will collapse under its own weight.â
Revealingly, his op-ed contained no mention of US sanctions, estimated to have killed tens of thousandsâsanctions that WOLA initially embraced, then very inadequately critiqued, and often, as here, helped the media ignore entirely.
WOLA has long been given a prominent media platform to make the liberal case for US sanctions as a legitimate means of forcing the Maduro government to ânegotiate.â
Both Smilde and Ramsey were cheerleaders for the Trump administrationâs August 26, 2017, financial sanctions, which effectively cut Venezuela off from global credit markets, denying the country desperately needed loans to finance its economic recovery. Crucially, the move blocked Venezuelan state oil company PDVSAâs US-based subsidiary, Citgo, from repatriating profits, which were averaging $1 billion per year. For reference, Venezuelaâs medical imports totaled $2 billion in 2013.
Smilde told the Associated Press (8/25/17) that he backed the sweeping unilateral measures, which the outlet disingenuously mischaracterized as âlimited sanctions targeting future indebtedness.â
The Tulane University professorâs most vocal concern was that even more severe economic sanctions âwould bolster his [Maduroâs] discourse that Venezuela is the target of an economic war.â
At the time, Smilde and Ramsey released a statement on behalf of WOLA praising the âvirtuesâ of the financial embargo, which they claimed
complicate[s] the Maduro governmentâs finances in such a way thatâŚwill not have an immediate impact on the population (although in the longer term, they likely would).
In fact, even anti-Maduro economist Francisco RodrĂguez, considered one of the worldâs foremost experts on Venezuelaâs economy, immediately raised fears that the coercive measures ârisk worsening the countryâs already deep economic crisisâ (Financial Times, 9/12/17).
Several months later, Smilde (New York Times, 1/14/18) doubled down, urging Washington and its allies to âcontinue to pressure Mr. Maduro by deepening the current sanctions regime.â
Despite warning against âwidening economic sanctions to an oil embargo,â he praised the existing financial sanctions, which he credited with âbringing the Maduro government to the negotiation table.â
The WOLA fellowâs defense of sanctions came just 48 hours after RodrĂguez published another article (Foreign Policy, 1/12/18) revealing that Venezuelan imports had declined by a further 24 percent in the two months following the August measures, âdeepening the scarcity of basic goods.â
Smildeâs indifference to Venezuelansâ suffering under the sanctions he championed was only matched by his contempt for their political will, refusing to acknowledge that over 55 percent of the population unsurprisingly opposed the noose around their economyâs neck, even according to pro-opposition pollster DatanĂĄlisis.
Even more cynically, Smilde sought to frame his endorsement of the financial blockade as dovish opposition to US military intervention: âA military strike against Venezuela would be folly,â he warned, taking the standard liberal stance that casts Western aggression as a âblunderâ at worstânever a brutal crime.
But as the deadly toll of US sanctions became increasingly difficult to justify, WOLA eagerly assisted the corporate media in concealing their existence.
Writing on the one-year anniversary of the sanctions, Ramsey and WOLA Andes director Gimena SĂĄnchez-Garzoli penned an op-ed (New York Times, 8/29/18) accusing Maduro of having âbrought his country to its knees.â
Under the ironic headline âVenezuelan Refugees Are Miserable. Letâs Help Them Out,â the authors related harrowing stories of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, with one key omission: They failed to dedicate even one line to the US financial embargo that exacerbated Venezuelaâs economic crisis and fueled the âexodusâ they decried.
This elision was especially glaring, given that not just RodrĂguez (Foreign Policy, 1/12/18) but a growing number of internationally renowned intellectuals and human rights activists, including thenâUN independent expert Alfred-Maurice de Zayas (Real News, 3/14/18), were sounding the alarm bells about the sanctionsâ lethal impact.
Ramsey and SĂĄnchez-Garzoli proceeded to blame the collapse of Colombiaâs peace process on Caracas (which incidentally helped negotiate the accords), absolving BogotĂĄ and Washington of their almost exclusive responsibility for the failure:
As the exodus grows, it also threatens to undermine Colombiaâs peace process.
Colombia has promised to improve badly needed services to marginalized communities as part of an accord with FARC rebels, and the arrival of Venezuelan refugees has complicated the situation.
The authors made no mention of the Colombian stateâs systematic violation of the peace accords, including the assassination of at least 75 social leaders from January through August 2018. SĂĄnchez-Garzoli was doubtless aware of this fact, having published a WOLA statement on the very topic eight days prior.
Instead of denouncing the Colombian narco-stateâs reign of terror, WOLA sympathetically urged Colombian President IvĂĄn Duque (FAIR.org, 7/2/19)âthe protegĂŠ of ultra-right paramilitary-linked former President Ălvaro Uribeâto âlead a regional protection and assistance effort for fleeing Venezuelans.â An informed reader would have to conclude that Ramsey and SĂĄnchez-Garzoliâs purpose was to whitewash the US and its ally (Extra!, 4/01; FAIR.org, 2/1/09; Colombia Reports, 12/29/19) as they menaced Venezuela.
Days before Maduroâs inauguration for his second term, Smilde and Lowenthal (The Hill, 1/6/19) called for âthe internal mobilization of a unified opposition, in tandem with international pressureâ to force the Venezuelan president to enter ânegotiations.â Here âinternational pressureâ was a not-so-subtle euphemism for sanctions, which they steered clear of mentioning, let alone denouncing.
Smilde was certainly cognizant of the data pointing to a plausible causal link between the US financial blockade and Venezuelaâs collapsing oil production, as WOLA published an article by Francisco RodrĂguez (9/20/18) making such a case months before. Yet he and his colleague remained silent on that, preferring to encourage the right-wing opposition to unify and mobilize against the Venezuelan governmentâincidentally, just as the opposition had in the violent US-backed coup attempts of 2002, 2002/03, 2013, 2014 and 2017.
To this end, Smilde and Lowenthal compared the difficulty of transition from Chavista governance with the challenges faced by movements that resisted various dictatorships: Pinochetâs Chile, apartheid South Africa and Communist Poland. In reality, Chavismoâs opponents face less formidable challenges than third-party candidates in the US.
WOLAâs defense of sanctions continued after the previously unknown head of Venezuelaâs opposition-controlled parliament, Juan GuaidĂł, proclaimed himself âinterim presidentâ of the country on January 23, 2019, with Washingtonâs blessing.
Speaking to CNBC (1/24/19), Ramsey argued against a US oil embargo, on the grounds that the existing sanctions afforded necessary âpressureâ on Maduro:
There already are a series of important sanctions against Venezuela. The US has leveled strong financial sanctions that restrict the governmentâs ability to get access to new debtâŚ. I donât think thereâs any shortage of pressure. What we need is engagement.
In addition to continuing to back the sanctions, WOLA refused to call out GuaidĂłâs self-swearing in as a coup attempt, even though it triggered a de facto trade embargo, given that the US and its allies no longer recognized the Maduro governmentâs right to invoice Venezuelan oil exports.
Rather, Smilde told Democracy Now! (2/5/19) that âitâs a plausible interpretation that if thereâsâŚnot a legitimate president, it will be the National Assembly president that steps in as interim president.â He did raise concern about the US recognition of GuaidĂł creating âa real difficulty in Venezuela in terms of the lack of funds coming in,â but at no point did he condemn it as a coup.
WOLA released a statement criticizing the oil embargo that the Trump administration formalized on January 28, though it stopped short of calling for the illegal measure to be unconditionally rescinded.
Despite acknowledging that âsanctions have punished and weakened populationsâ in Zimbabwe, Syria and North Korea, the think tank merely suggested that the new measures should be lifted âif there is no way for the human cost of these oil sanctions to be avoided.â WOLA made no mention of the previous financial sanctions exacerbating âthe severe hardships and sufferingâ that they decried.
However, as sanctions predictably caused drastic fuel shortages across Venezuela and Washington moved to tighten the deadly siege, WOLA still refused to demand that they be lifted. The fact that prominent economists Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot published a study (CEPR, 4/19) finding the August 2017 financial sanctions responsible for an estimated 40,000 deaths over the following year was apparently of negligible concern to them.
Meanwhile, Smilde and Lowenthal were quite busy penning op-eds urging âstrong international supportâ for Norway-mediated talks between the Venezuelan government and opposition (New York Times, 6/11/19; The Hill, 7/3/19).
âStrong international supportâ evidently meant continuing devastating sanctions, because in neither piece did the authors call for sanctions relief.
The Times articleâpublished five days after the Treasury Department banned the export of diluents to Venezuela, which are vital for gasoline and diesel productionâdid not even contain the word âsanctions.â
In the absence of any credible domestic opposition to its coup policy, the Trump administration doubled down in August, expanding the existing embargo to an Iran-style ban on dealings with the Venezuelan state, enforceable via secondary sanctions on third party actors.
WOLA teamed up with several Latin American partner organizations to issue yet another deferential statement (8/6/19) expressing âdeep concern about the potential for these broad economic sanctions to aggravate Venezuelaâs humanitarian emergency.â
As it had in January, WOLA politely recommended that perhaps the Trump administration should lift its illegal blockade âif there is no way to avoid the human cost of these measures and provide humanitarian assistance with the urgency and breadth that is required.â
In comments to corporate media, Ramsey criticized the escalation as an electoral ploy âbuilt on Cold War rhetoricâ (New York Times, 8/6/19), but he once again parroted US propaganda that sanctions were motivated by an interest in democracy (Bloomberg, 8/9/19):
If there are clear, verifiable signals that new presidential elections would be free and fair, the US government could be interested in ways to loosen the impact of economic sanctions without lifting them entirely.
The August 2017 financial sanctions, which Ramsey helped justify and then conceal, were levied 16 months before the deadline for Venezuelan presidential elections. Like the US embargo on Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s, the sanctions had absolutely nothing to do with whether Maduro won âfree and fairâ elections, which he had in 2013 and did again in 2018 (FAIR.org, 5/23/18).
Rather, the US blockade is a naked expression of imperial might, which WOLA and other Western propaganda amplifiers hide behind empty rhetoric about âdemocracyâ and âhuman rights.â
Lucas Koerner is a journalist and political analyst based in Caracas, Venezuela. He currently serves on the editorial board of Venezuelanalysis.
Support Groundbreaking Anti-Imperialist Journalism: Stand with Orinoco Tribune!
For 6.5 years, weâve delivered unwavering truth from the Global South frontline â no corporate filters, no hidden agenda.
Last yearâs impact:
â˘Â 150K+ active readers demanding bold perspectives
â˘Â 158 original news/opinion pieces published
â˘Â 16 hard-hitting YouTube videos bypassing media gatekeepers
Fuel our truth-telling: Every contribution strengthens independent media that actually challenges imperialism.
Be the difference:Â Donate now to keep radical journalism alive!