Venezuela Expels US Embassy Official

The recent expulsion by President Nicolas Maduro of the head of the US diplomatic mission in Venezuela, Kelly Keiderling Franz and two of her employees is proof of the resurgence of the plan to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution. Maduro said he has evidence of the American involvement in the sabotage of the national economy and the power sector. “We detected a group of US embassy officials dedicated to meeting the far-right and to financing and encouraging acts of sabotage against the electrical system and Venezuela’s economy,” the president said in a televised speech.

Kelly Keiderling Franz, is a CIA agent who earlier worked in Cuba to destablise the government there. She worked under the cover of director of the press and culture office in the US Interests Section (USIS) and befriended Cuban double agent Raúl Capote to accomplish her tasks.

Reports about how the US has attempted and destabilised a foreign government to advance its transnational corporate interests, and to establish its hegemony over the unrelenting countries are not new. And, of course, this is certainly not the first time in Venezuela.

The film, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, a 2003 documentary focusing on events in Venezuela during the April 2002 coup d’état attempt, which saw President Hugo Chávez removed from office for two days, clearly shows the role of the US operatives in engineering the coup.

It is an open secret that the USAID pumped in millions of dollars to further its agenda of 'regime change'. Eminent lawyer and rights' activist Eva Golinger had written extensively on this aspect with incriminating evidence. Through the USAID, millions were funded even into the Venezuelan higher education system to mould courses and academics to 'promote the democratic project', which in reality meant ouster of the Chavez administration.

Former US Ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations, an influential US foreign policy think-tank, outlined a range of military, financial and diplomatic measures that the US should be prepared to take against the Chavez government after the Venezuelan presidential elections in 2012. He even suggested plans to be followed by the US, in case of the sudden death of Chavez. Duddy is the very same ambassador who was expelled from Venezuela in 2008 for his involvement in an American-supported plot to topple the Chavez government.

A few weeks back, WikiLeaks had released a 2006 State Department cable detailing the Bush administration's strategy for undermining Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez by supporting alleged 'pro-democracy' groups.

The cable, signed by then-Ambassador William Brownfield, outlines a five-point strategy that includes “penetrating Chavez's political base,” “dividing Chavismo,” “protecting vital US business” and “isolating Chavez internationally.” Those goals are to be obtained by strengthening “democratic institutions,” according to the cable.

Capote, the Cuban security official who worked under the operative name of Agent Daniel, in an interview given to Pascual Serrano, recalled how he met Keiderling in Cuba and said, "A close relationship with Kelly, who began to exercise an influence on my family, began there. She said that she wanted to make life easier for me, that I was a brilliant writer." According to Granma, his friendship with Keiderling continued for years, to the point that the US agent became Capote’s sponsor, as a means of gaining entry into his private life. She had an unlimited budget and went as far as to suggest taking his goddaughter to the United States to study on a scholarship, and also proposed that Daniel create a literary agency, with the idea of having an influence within Cuban artistic circles.

"The Agencia Literaria Cubana Online webpage was created, used by writers to disseminate and sell their work, but the idea began to change into something else, they said they wanted it to bring together not only writers but also artists and musicians, to be coordinated with other embassies, such as the German one, etc… They would receive funding for all of that," affirmed Capote while describing Keiderling’s intelligence work.

"They would hand over three, four of five thousand dollars without even checking to see if we had organized the activity for which the money was requested. They liked themes such as micro-enterprises, how to organize the civil society, leadership courses; they provided us with manuals and things like that," the double agent confirmed, describing a process similar to the one developed by Keiderling in Venezuela.

The CIA spent tens of millions of dollars during 50 years of promoting activities hostile to Cuba, trying to create focal points of dissidence.

Key Figure

The Granma also notes that the Moscow-based researcher and journalist Nil Nikandrov recently described Keiderling as a key figure in the organisation of activities to destabilise Venezuela, in an analysis of the intelligence work undertaken by the US embassy in Caracas.

"After special training, she began to work in the State Department in 1988. She had her first experience abroad in Africa. After studying Russian, Keiderling was sent to Kyrgyzstan. Subsequently, after studying for 12 months at the National Defense University in Washington, she served in Moldavia," Nikandrov reports prior to noting her intensive intelligence activities in Cuba.

Keiderling arrived in Venezuela in July 2011. "The temporary business attaché assists officials who, in their majority, have an imperial way of thinking and a condescending attitudes toward the ‘natives’ and their pretensions to sovereignty," observed Nikandrov, noting that the goal of US intelligence agencies is to ‘neutralise’ the government of Maduro by any means. The more blood spilt, the better."

Wikileaks Reveals Keiderling-Capriles Connection

In April 2013, a confidential document datelined September 2011, signed by Keiderling Franz and disclosed by Wikileaks, fully revealed the direct contact maintained by the US embassy staff with the defeated presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles.

She reported on Point 3 that Capriles said he appreciated the assistance given and received with pleasure the news that, by February 2012, her support for all the opposition candidates with which USAID had previously worked was more than guaranteed. She added that Capriles was sorry to hear of the departure of John Caufield, while at the same time agreeing with her that his leaving did not in any way endanger their objectives.

In Point 4 of the document, the agent notes that Capriles reiterated that if he was to win the upcoming elections, Venezuela’s foreign policy would be reviewed in depth and Caracas would become a trustworthy ally of the U.S.

Point 5 reveals how her conspiratorial activities extended beyond Venezuelan borders. She states that additional resources will be channelled to representatives who could be trusted via new entities, principally through NGO’s in Chile, Panama, Colombia and the U.S.

Another recent report, by the researcher Jean Cleaux Duvergel, shows how – in relation to a post-electoral coup plot – meetings had taken place in Keiderling Franz’ residence, "with representatives of the Capriles media chain, with Miguel Otero (El Nacional), Andrés Mata (owner of El Universal), Carlos Croes (of Televen), and members of Venevisión, Bloque de Armas, Globovisión and Canal I."

The Keiderling episode once again demonstrates how active the US is in Latin America, the region it once considered its backyard, to topple all those progressive regimes that had come to power on an anti-imperialist agenda. The cyber-spying on these countries including the conversations of the Presidents of these nations, as exposed by Snowden, is another face of this very same intervention of the US in the internal affairs of sovereign countries. That US does not even trust its allies, has come out in the open with its snooping activities in France seeing the light of the day.

The US intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign countries across the world is increasingly getting exposed. The Keiderling episode, might not be the proverbial 'last straw', but is certainly one more straw that further reveals the interventionist policies of the US.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Newsclick