US Secretary of State Pompeo claims Cuba and Venezuela are hijacking Latin American protests

 (December 3 2019) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has for a long time supported and propped up right-wing governments in Latin America that support US policy while often ignoring those governments' sometimes violent repression of pro-democracy protests.

Pompeo's remarks

While the US often claims to support democratic protests, as for example it supports those in Hong Kong, it now has a new narrative that allows it to brand protests against right-wing pro-US regimes as being hijacked by Cuba and Venezuela and turned into riots that will be rightly repressed by those regimes with the help of the US. A recent Reuters article reports: "“We in the Trump administration will continue to support countries trying to prevent Cuba and Venezuela from hijacking those protests and we’ll work with legitimate (governments) to prevent protests from morphing into riots and violence that don’t reflect the democratic will of the people,” Pompeo told an audience at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky. "

Pompeo said the US needs to be prepared to help those countries stopping violent protests. Pompeo does not say how they would do this but it could be through increased aid for the military and security forces of those countries. If the situation became too dangerous the US could even intervene militarily.

The new policy is the old policy with a new narrative

There is no change in the policy of supporting right-wing governments and their crackdowns on protests that could bring changes the US would not favor but the narrative has changed. When the protests become violent and become a real challenge to any US-supported right-wing government the US now blames this on external actors the US is so opposed to they would like to see regime change, namely Cuba and Venezuela.

Pompeo did not need to add Bolivia to the list of bad external actors since there has already been a US-supported coup there. But the new narrative will justify any repression of those protesting against the coup. Pompeo claims in his speech on the appended video that Bolivia is now on its way to democracy. Perhaps coups are a good substitute for protests on occasion in advancing democracy or at least those coups supported by the US.

Previously published in the Digital Journal