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Comment by diego_moita | Hacker News Reader

There's a lot of click bait going on in here. A coup in Venezuela wouldn't disrupt a democratic order because there is no democratic order in Venezuela.

The article assumes that Maduro is a legitimate President. That is simply not true, there is solid evidence of plenty of fraud on the last election, the rule of the law is long gone in there, the justice courts are puppets of the regime, the legislative is silenced by force.

What is at stake here is just whether the military keep supporting the caudillo Maduro or not. Democracy is out of this game already.

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The Maduro defense is getting ridiculous.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elecciones_parlamentarias_de_V...

The opposition won the elections, 112 to 55 MP, which, AFAIK, are also electors. There was a supposed fraud on a few of them, which, on the other hand, was poorly substantiated, and very likely fake on its own.

Sin embargo, apenas una semana después de las declaraciones anteriores, el TSJ difundió oficialmente que había aceptado 7 denuncias de impugnaciones que afectaban a un total de 8 diputados electos para representar a los estados Amazonas, Aragua y Yaracuy,,111 de las cuales 6 fueron posteriormente declaradas improcedentes112 y la séptima aceptada como procedente, consecuentemente siendo declarado por el TSJ que se ordenaba la "suspensión" de los actos de totalización de votos y proclamación de resultados de la elección parlamentaria en todos los circuitos del estado Amazonas,113 afectando a tres diputados electos por la MUD (uno de ellos de la representación indígena por la región sur) y un diputado del PSUV elegido por votación lista.114

Supreme court, nominated by Maduro, then prevents MP from taking oath, which, in effect, makes the assembly non-functional. Maduro then orders the supreme court to install him as president, one more time.

If there was a coup, it was a judicial one, by Maduro, in 2015.

American citizens rely on the government and the press to determine if the election in a foreign country were legitimate. They do not speak the language in the country and do not have cultural ties to this country.

Do you think that the average American can accurately asses who is the proper president of Venezuela using only the word of the government and the press?

We know the current administration is packed with ideologues; many of whom are veterans of the Latin American "Dirty Wars" of the 1980s. I don't think we can trust the government on this one.

The "click bait" article, which is actually well cited, makes the case that the press is almost always in favor of regime-change in Latin America.

So I will ask again, do you think that US Americans are knowledgeable enough about Latin America to know what is best for Latin America?

> do you think that US Americans are knowledgeable enough about Latin America to know what is best for Latin America?

I don't know, I am Latin American (from Brazil), not US American.

I'm in the US and it is difficult to find media here that is critical of US intervention in Latin America. It's not a question that people need to engage with at all if they don't want to. It's a small story.

The current administration has nefarious intentions for Venezuela. They want to turn it into a more compliant, Banana Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

> there is solid evidence of plenty of fraud on the last election

In fact, there isn't. If there is, please provide supporting evidence. Since we're on the subject of the New York Times, here[1] is the closest example I can find, which resorts to vague, unsubstantiated insinuations that voters were "pressured" despite historically low turnout.

As you indicate, the military supports Maduro. There is no reason to believe this will change. The putative interim 'leader' Juan Guaidó was relatively unknown until this coup attempt, has no constitutional mandate to lead, and has no traction with the Venezuelan state. He received an astounding zero percent of the vote in the last election.

Efforts by the US's famously free press to portray otherwise have sunk to desperately lower stabs at 'clickbait' than the linked article. A few hours ago, NPR published the sensationalist headline "High-Ranking General Rejects Maduro, Who Proposes Earlier Parliamentary Elections"[2]. Eight paragraphs later, we get this hilariously sunken lede: "Although hundreds of generals serve in the Venezuelan military, the announcement represents a victory for Guaidó, NPR's Philip Reeves reports."

None of this is to defend to current leadership of Venezuela - it is disastrous. Neither would I defend the leadership of Saudi Arabia, which doesn't even _pretend_ to have "democratic order." But these are not problems to be decided by the US, the media class, or the "international community." Don't take it from me - ask an Iraqi.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/20/world/americas/venezuela-...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2019/02/02/690944320/high-ranking-genera...

By that logic, would it also have been okay for China to meddle in internal US politics after The DNC literally rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders, in favor of HRC?

Did you actually read the article? It's about a lot more than just the Venezuelan coup.

It's about everything but Venezuela.

It spent more space on the nytimes making a bad call about Iran in the 50s, then on Maduro or Venezuela.

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