Raul Capote: Guarimbas: Managers of Chaos

excerpts from Guarimbas Los gestores del caos

Cuban journalist and researcher Raúl Antonio Capote, former double agent who infiltrated the CIA

Chapter 1

Riots

Images do not lie, although today new technologies, especially artificial intelligence (AI), are capable of distorting reality. The photographs and videos that arrived from various places around the world, where the so-called “peaceful protests”, “opposition marches”, “plantones”, “tranques” etc., seemed like perfect copies of each other.

In Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, etc., human torches were repeated, the “guayas” stretched on the barricades (steel wires that are stretched from one side of the street to the other), the “miguelitos” (homemade devices made with nails and pieces of hose or tube that are thrown into the streets to deflate the tires of motorcycles and cars), the “peaceful activists” armed with wooden clubs with spikes, slingshots, homemade bazookas, Molotov cocktails, dozens of homemade weapons. Same homemade weapons, similar clothing, posters, graffiti, extreme violence, the script is the same, the same hand pulls the strings.

Criminal groups mobilized through payment, adolescents and young people from dysfunctional families, poorly cared for, school dropouts recruited through social networks, kids looking for adventure, grouped through groups on WhatsApp and Facebook, followers of certain influencers, incited by well-camouflaged agents of the counterrevolution, directed by the Yankee embassy or from abroad, especially from Miami, act in the streets against predetermined targets, their objective to generate chaos. They loot shops, set fire to institutions, attack security forces, beat, kill, destroy, and spread terror.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media, in conjunction with social networks, construct a narrative of disorder, of the violation of human rights, of the criminality of the security forces, of the illegitimacy of the governments that are victims of the attack, etc. On the other hand, a strong diplomatic campaign is unleashed to condemn the governments and defend the “opponents.”

Cuba experienced the violence of this strategy in the summer of 2021 with very similar elements and variables. In the midst of a difficult economic situation, including the COVID-19 pandemic, which the US government took advantage of to intensify the economic, commercial and financial blockade, protests encouraged from abroad occurred. Blackouts, transport problems, shortages of basic products, and a strong campaign on digital media and social networks have brought people to a state of near shock.

Desperation, when wisely managed, and the state of shock, causes people to act irrationally. All it takes is a spark and an unstoppable fire can break out.

Protests took place in Cuba on July 11, not as large or as intense as they were presented by the mainstream media and social networks, but it was a reality exploited by the US special services to impose their “soft coup” agenda. Small groups of counterrevolutionary activists kept their distance and directed, giving orders via cell phones to the boys, some of them teenagers, whom they instructed and ordered to destroy cars, attack the police, break windows, throw stones and Molotov cocktails.

It was, however, obvious, because they did not even hide to do so, that the main “leaders” of the coup were in Miami. As part of their soft coup strategy, they attempted to set up roadblocks, string steel wires and burn car tires, but they were unsuccessful. The timely action of the revolutionary people prevented the actions planned to achieve a state of extreme violence, which would lead to a situation of ungovernability, from being successful. One only has to remember the constant calls of the counterrevolution to civil disobedience, to barbarism, but above all to US military intervention.

Traps for hunting humans

“Guarimba” is a colloquial term used in Venezuela to refer to street barricades or roadblocks. The Venezuelan “opposition” set them in motion to destabilize first the government of Hugo Chávez and then that of Nicolás Maduro.

On April 11, 2002, the anti-Chavez counterrevolution carried out a coup d’état that claimed the lives of dozens of citizens. An interesting detail is that, in 2014, during the coup in Kyiv, snipers were used to shoot at protesters and also at security forces, acting secretly, killing people from both commands, and they never appeared, something similar happened years before, in 2002, in Caracas.

The Venezuelan right called for the execution of a plan called “La Salida” (The Exit) that sought to overthrow the constitutional president Nicolás Maduro, the number of deaths from this violent attack was 44 Venezuelans and 878 injured, among them 137 members of the National Guard. In 2017 they repeated the formula with a result of more than one hundred deaths.

In 2014, extreme violence reached insane limits. In addition to crimes, looting, roadblocks, and human torches, some 5,000 trees were burned by the “guarimbero groups.” More than $10 billion in material damages were caused by attacks on national heritage that year.

The then president of the Venezuelan Parliament, Diosdado Cabello, denounced that the opposition received $2,381,824 “from the non-governmental organization National Endowment for Democracy” (NED), based in Washington.

Numerous testimonies provided by the actors demonstrated the payments issued by right-wing leaders to the perpetrators of the riots. In one of the videos released in 2017, a young man who was arrested confesses to having received a payment of 300,000 bolivars to destroy the headquarters of the Judiciary. The cruelty of hate crimes was increasing, in 2017, they reached extremes that shocked Venezuelans.

About seven people were burned alive for being identified as “Chavistas”, the lynching of a former Venezuelan military man by a group of opponents who accused him of being an “infiltrator” was recorded, etc.

This increase in violence, as in the case of Nicaragua, sought to justify a military intervention in Venezuela.

Social media was the main tool for calling for protests. Groups on the networks established daily work coordinates for the protesters, although emails and SMS were also used.

 For example, in Venezuela basic rules were established, something similar happened in Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia during the coup against Evo Morales.

1. Create resistance cells of up to seven people (it doesn’t have to be, just trusted friends)

2. Find anything to block the streets (especially major highways).

3. Leave at 4 am to quickly build the barricade.

4. Once the barricade is set up, don’t just stand there defending it.

5. Build a barricade per day, in the nearest streets.

Added to this are the “instruction manuals” for making homemade weapons, for providing guidance on how to isolate a police officer in order to burn him, beat him and eliminate him, how to dress for demonstrations, etc.

In a press conference, the Ombudsman of Venezuela, Gabriela Ramírez, declared that “looking at the figures that show the violent acts, we have determined that the most lethal trap has been the “guarimbas”, which we can refer to as traps to hunt human beings.”

The riots became a nefarious symbol of unconventional warfare on the continent; the Venezuelan experience was repeated throughout the region against those governments that do not align with Washington’s interests. In Kiev, violence was concentrated in a square; in Latin America, it spread to neighborhoods, towns and cities; riots became a weapon of war.

 Chapter 2 The war that is being waged against us

US Military Bases in Latin America and the Caribbean. The South America Plan (a must-have piece of information)

In March 2018, the U.S. Southern Command published information about its strategy for our region over the next ten years, the main “dangers” or “threats” identified and how to confront them, naming the Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia threats, “the fight against drug trafficking,” regional and transnational illicit networks, increased presence of China, Russia and Iran in Latin America and the Caribbean, disaster relief —remember the “aid” provided to Haiti during the earthquake— as well as the role assigned to the security forces of each country in different areas related to internal, regional and international security. (www.southcom.mil/Portals/7/Documents/USSOUTHCOM_Theater_Strategy_Spanish_(FINAL).pdf ?ver=2017-10-26-124307- 193×tamp=1509036213302

The then commander of the Southern Command, Admiral Kurt Tidd, in February 2018 presented to Congress the scenarios planned for the continent, objectives, means and strategies in accordance with the National Defense Strategy (2018) and the National Security Strategy (2017-2018). “In terms of geographic proximity, trade, immigration and culture, there is no other part of the world that affects daily life in the United States more than Central America, South America and the Caribbean.”

The challenges to hegemony, the US admiral says, will be faced through a “Network of Networks” operated by the Southern Command in conjunction with US agencies and allies. Three Joint Task Forces will act in this plan: Joint Task Force-Bravo (Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras), Joint Task Force Guantanamo, and Joint Interagency Task Force-South (Key West, Florida).

Contingency response includes: defense of the Panama Canal and the Panama Canal Area; Migration control operations; Humanitarian assistance and disaster response; Unilateral, bilateral or multilateral military operations carried out by the forces in response to any crisis.

According to Admiral Kurt Tidd’s report, Cuba continued to threaten U.S. interests in the region through surveillance and counterintelligence activities in several countries. “The clearest example is its influence in Venezuela.”

Colombia is the key player in the region, investing 3.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in military spending in 2017, equivalent to USD 9.713 billion. This country’s investment is the second highest in the South American region, according to its total military spending, only below Brazil. The third country with the most money allocated to its armies is Argentina with USD 5.680 billion, equivalent to only 0.9% of its GDP.

In Mexico, military spending has increased considerably over the last ten years, reaching 47.5% (six billion dollars), which represents just over 2.5% of GDP. This increase has occurred in parallel with substantial cuts in science and technology, health and education.

The installation of a US military base in Neuquén, Argentina, provides us with an interesting fact: in 2011, the YPF company discovered a mega oil field in Neuquén and in 2018 the US announced that it would build a humanitarian aid base there. Coincidence?

The United States divides the world into nine commands. For Latin America and the Caribbean, the Southern Command, with its network of military bases, including the 4th Fleet, which is itself a set of highly operational bases with great capacity for movement, constitutes a serious threat.

These bases are not just military, although they all are in essence. There are bases that function as centers for media warfare and cyberwarfare, the Southern Command works together with NASA, the Intelligence Agency Geospatial and the Brazilian Armed Forces —and those of other countries— in a project to create a satellite for the South Cyber-Container Initiative: network analysis to detect malicious activities on the network. Developed in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

In addition to the visit made by Admiral Kurt W. Tidd to Colombia in those years, there was also a multinational meeting on maritime security in Miami. At this second meeting — the first was in December 2017 — a letter of intent was signed between the United States, Colombia and Mexico, to “protect the sovereignty of the territorial waters and exclusive economic zones of each nation.” This “maritime security” would cover the Gulf of Mexico, part of Central America and the Colombian Caribbean.

Peru also became a key part of the US military deployment in the region with the installation of bases in the Peruvian jungle and the Regional Emergency Operations Centers (COER).

While Admiral Kurt W. Tidd was visiting Colombia, Argentina authorized the United States to install a military base in the Triple Frontier, between its territory, Paraguay and Brazil, while Patricia Bullrich signed an agreement to create a Regional Intelligence Center in Ushuaia (Argentine Patagonia).

In early January 2018, it became known that US military personnel were arriving in Panamanian territory. The military force was supposed to remain there until after the elections held in April in Venezuela. The excuse: “the defense of the Panama Canal.”

The noose was tightening; the war that the United States is waging against Venezuela requires a regional force that intervenes not only economically and politically, but also militarily.

The renewed direct and indirect interference in the Armed Forces, National Police and national sovereignty of Ecuador, facilitated by the Government of Lenín Moreno, which includes providing training, intelligence, exchange of information and access to military schools, where Ecuadorian officers can be “trained”, the presence of US military personnel on Ecuadorian soil, under the pretext of fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, constitutes a serious danger. The then deputy commander of the Southern Command, Joseph P. DiSalvo, visiting Ecuador, met with the highest authorities to “coordinate actions”.
“We must think of a new strategy that is more than a  Plan Colombia than a Plan South America, where everyone can combine their efforts and thus fight against this,” DiSalvo said in an interview with Ecuadorian media. Rafael Ángel Ugalde Quirós, NATO tempts Latin America

The revival of the Monroe Doctrine, evoked by Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of State of the United States, when he warned of the threat posed to “our democratic values” by the commercial presence of China and Russia in the region, shows a revival of the worst line of action of imperial thought.

The objective was and is to increase the military presence in the region in order to ensure its hegemonic interests in the hemisphere, consolidate a front against Venezuela and perpetuate its dominance over the immense economic resources of Latin America and the Caribbean.

This was recently underlined, in January 2023, without the slightest hint of a hitch, by the current head of the US Southern Command, Laura Richardson, in conversation with the think tank Atlantic Council. VIDEO: Head of US Southern Command clarifies what her country is looking for in Latin America. 

“Why is this region important?” she said. “With all its rich resources and rare earth elements, you have the lithium triangle, which is necessary for technology today. Sixty percent of the world’s lithium is in the lithium triangle: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,” Richardson said.

According to the military chief, another important reason is the concentration of “the largest oil reserves,” including “light, sweet crude oil discovered off Guyana.” “You have Venezuela’s resources too, with oil, copper, gold,” She continued listing the general reasons, without forgetting the importance of the Amazon, “the lungs of the world.”

On the other hand, “we have 31% of the world’s fresh water in this region,” she added, “the US has a lot to do… It has a lot to do with national security and we have to start our game.”

Referring to national security, Richardson mentioned her “number two adversary” in Latin America, “Russia” and in this regard indicated that Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua have relations with Moscow. One might wonder, what is the Yankee general doing on a tour of Latin America in 2024?

The managers of chaos destabilized Ecuador by using criminal gangs as instruments of chaos, a tool they have used successfully in the region.

How can we get the Yankee Marines to land in any of our countries? It would certainly be very costly in every sense, but if they come to the rescue, if they are called by a president who speaks on behalf of the people, to confront uncontrollable organized crime, no one speaks out against it, no one moves a single finger.

Let us observe how drug cartels spread across the continent, how the presence of criminal groups destabilizes entire regions of the Patria Grande. Is it a coincidence?

Bolívar’s phrase seems to have more value today than ever: “The United States […] seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of freedom.”

Unconventional Wars

Much has been written and, above all, spoken about fourth generation wars, asymmetric, hybrid, non-conventional, diffuse, etc. In reality, these are terms used, for the most part, by the US armed forces to define the characteristics of the imperialist war they are waging to maintain their dominance over the world.

The term “Fourth Generation Warfare” was coined in October 1989, when William Lind and four officers from the United States Army and Marine Corps published a paper titled “The Changing Face of Warfare: Moving Toward the Fourth Generation” in an issue of Military Review and the Marine Corps Gazette. They are part of US military doctrine and include guerrilla warfare, the creation of paramilitary groups, state terrorism, covert operations, civil war and propaganda combined with non-traditional combat strategies, including the use of new communications technologies and social media.

·    First generation: it has to do with the appearance of firearms and reaches its maximum expression in the Napoleonic wars, corresponding to confrontations with line and column tactics.

·    Second generation: begins with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, defined by the use of large resources. The First World War is its paradigmatic example.

·    Third generation: not based on firepower, but on speed and surprise. This stage is identified with the use of psychological warfare and infiltration tactics in the enemy’s rear, which reached its peak during World War II.

In fact, after the fourth, three others have been defined, the fifth and sixth generations.

Six elements are fundamental in this type of conflict: economic warfare, attacks on reputation, political subversion, the war of large media conglomerates and digital social networks, cyberwar and conspiracy theories, but they are not the only ones. In the case of Latin America and the Caribbean we must include the use of paramilitarism, mercenaries, criminal groups, drug trafficking, radical Pentecostalism, lawfare, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), humanitarian aid and the military.

Without these elements we will not be able to understand the characteristics of the war that is being waged against us, not only to overthrow governments that are not in line with the empire, but also to prevent the triumph of the popular forces and protect their interests in the region. If we do not see it this way, we would not be able to understand that we are all the objects and victims of this war, no matter where we live.

Economic warfare seeks to drive people into a state of desperation that nullifies their ability to reason lucidly, while promoting character assassination bulls do their dirty work on social media. Reputation or character assassination is a deliberate process aimed at destroying the credibility and reputation of a person, social group or country, with the aim of isolating it and leaving it defenseless against its aggressors, as well as justifying any atrocity committed by the invaders.

On the other hand, they build leaders of change through scholarship plans and leadership courses, organize and finance opposition groups, plan destabilizing actions and provide great media support to their political puppets. An element that has gained special importance in this strategy has been the recruitment, through social networks, of members of the urban lumpen, criminals, members of criminal gangs, and even minors.

Let us remember that in November 2019, in Bolivia, violent gangs, protected by the narrative of “popular indignation,” carried out blockades of public roads in the style of the Venezuelan guarimberos and the Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries, burned institutions, made threats, committed murders, tortured, and humiliated social and political leaders in public.

During those days, Iran also suffered a wave of violence in which the same tactics used in Bolivia were repeated.

Cuba experienced similar scenarios on July 11, 2021, amid a continued policy of maximum pressure and a strong discredit campaign.

The goal of these actions is, as the soft coup theorists taught, to tear down the pillars that support the government so that it implodes. According to Bob Halvey (former American colonel and one of the gurus of this type of war), states must sink into anarchy and disorder, so that they cannot govern, so that they do not resign, but rather disappear and only a void remains.

US strategy for changing systems, the Color Revolutions

Color revolutions or soft coups are, in reality, a mechanism of indirect foreign intervention, created by the CIA to, in the new geopolitical conditions of the late 20th century and early 21st century, to apply, with the least possible losses, the old policy of changing the social system in those countries that have a strategic objective for the US.

Gene Sharp, the man credited with authoring the strategy, was considered the guru of non-violent revolutions. His work From  Dictatorship to Democracy, which describes and guides how to overthrow a “dictatorship” using non-violent methods, has been translated into more than thirty languages.

The Albert Einstein Institute was the pioneering center, together with the Open Society Foundations of the multimillionaire George Soros, of this new interventionist form disguised as a peaceful popular revolt, which was put into practice for the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia in 2000.

Srdja Popovic, Andrej Milivojevic, Slobodan Djinovic, leaders of the Otpor (resistance) group in Yugoslavia, the main element of the coup in that country, are the founders of the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategy (Canvas), and followers and “hard-working” students of Gene Sharp. They are also the authors of the manual Nonviolent Struggle, The 50 Crucial Points, a kind of bible of the soft coup, distributed in millions of copies throughout the world.

As outlined, young people, under the banner of “non-violence” and using logos and marketing tactics that appeal to youth, are to foment minor street disturbances to create a permanent environment of instability and chaos. Then, attracting the attention of the international media and guided by Washington agencies, they seek to provoke repression by the security forces through violent or illegal acts, an image that is then projected through the press as a violation of human rights, and used to justify any action against the government.

How do the US Special Services manufacture a Color Revolution? According to the manual of non-violent struggle, external factors create, organise, contact and provide money and training to opposition groups, with the aim of generating a multiplier effect of the street actions of the “youth activists”. Actors outside conventional politics are recruited, especially young people and students without any ideological affinity, who identify with the patterns and values ​​of consumer society.

Essential points of the manual

Use of symbols and slogans that help to popularize the movement, more than by political conviction, by fashion, clothes of a certain color, flags, signs, etc. Implementation of a discourse of non-violence and peaceful disobedience, accompanied by repeated street demonstrations, until a triggering event is achieved that leads to the collapse of the State.

Focusing the protest, using electronic media and communication, cell phones and others, to generate rapid concentrations and immediate presence of international media. Through the use of unconventional propaganda media, social networks, graffiti and performances, an attempt is made to trivialize and ridicule the presidential office and high authorities.

The promotion of internal chaos is accompanied by great international pressure to exhort people to respect the human rights of the protesters, and the generation of economic coercive measures that provoke great inflationary spirals, food shortages and insecurity, to suffocate the government victim of the attack and drag other sectors into the street actions.

Another element of the international campaign is the denial of the democratic nature of the government, denouncing that it results from electoral fraud, without consensus, and that, therefore, it is illegitimate, repressive, anti-popular, in short, a dictatorship. The mainstream media construct a false reality of the country, which is painted as a victim of the “revolution,” presenting to world public opinion a situation of ungovernability and chaos.

The strategy, as a whole, consists of five fundamental stages: softening, delegitimization of the government, warming up the streets, combining different forms of struggle and institutional fracture.

Some of the “non-violent revolutions” carried out in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America describe regularities such as those following: use of signs in English, cyberbullying of public officials and people who support the government, falsification of documents, fake news, selective physical aggression, use of homemade weapons, hiring of criminals and mercenaries to carry out anti-government actions, as well as a broad and articulated use of social networks as a weapon of attack and mobilization.

Role of new technologies

Today, the vast and well-equipped imperial armies have powerful technological weapons. According to Luis Britto García, “their cannons are the mass media; their projectiles, ideologies.”

The Political Action Group (GAP) which is part of the Center for Action Special Activities, a division of the Central Intelligence Agency, carries out actions that include the creation of communications structures and internet access in the countries or regions targeted by the attack. GAPs form Internet Task Forces that, in turn, hire research laboratories that use big data and data mining to study and sectorize influence on social networks, directing their “weapons” more effectively against a particular sector that they need to influence.

They also hire specialists (netcenters) in black propaganda and digital hitmen in charge of character assassinations, cyberbullying of public figures, government officials, etc. Such campaigns aim to sow a lack of faith in human beings and their possibilities, while exalting cynicism and egocentrism.

They need audiences who repeat emotional fallacies where the hegemonic point of view predominates. Post-truth, with its capacity for consensus, its glamour, its potential for symbolic usurpation, is used without any restraint. Its essence is to subordinate the facts to the emotional skills of the manipulator, to his capacity to act, to dramatize the lie.

continued next week