Venezuelan … denouement

You gotta hand it to Pres Trump. Never mind all the handwringing that’s going on around the world about his Venezuelan move not being quite kosher, the man’s not trying to mamaguy nobody!!! He’s come out and forthrightly announced to the world that whatever else might’ve been behind his move to remove Mad Maduro, those 300 billion barrels of oil sloshing around his country’s soil, is where the action’s gonna be going forward!! So, what can we expect now that the US, in the words of Pres Trump, is gonna “run” Venezuela for the foreseeable future??
While still quite sketchy, seems that politically, the plan is to continue with VP Delcy Rodrigues newly appointed as Acting President running the Government. Looks like the Yanks figure if they try to have the Opposition take over – whether through elections or appointment – that could split the country once again into competing “camps”. While “democracy” looks like a good goal, it does splinter folks!! The US trump card (pun intended!) is to focus on getting US oil companies to revive the oil extraction that’s only one-third of its pre-Chavista 3.5 million barrels per day!! But this is gonna take years and tens of billions of dollars! So, at the very best, going forward’s gonna be problematical.
Since some of you Dear Readers might think because your Eyewitness has some skin in the game – being a patriotic Guyanese and all who hated Mad Maduro’s guts!! –  he might not’ve been as objective as needed, he’s gonna pass on an analysis from a not-unfriendly source: “Venezuela is heavily armed. Years of political polarisation, along with an expanded role for security forces and pro-Government colectivos, mean that weapons and combat experience are not in short supply. The country’s borders are long, porous and already used by guerrillas, paramilitaries, and criminal networks.
“To see what that might look like in practice, you don’t have to speculate; you can look next door. Colombia’s armed conflict, officially dating from 1964, pitted the State against FARC, ELN, and a web of paramilitary and criminal actors for decades. It persisted, in part, because armed groups could slip across borders, find safe havens, move contraband, and restock. Even with massive US funding under Plan Colombia and repeated “final” offensives, the State never achieved a clean victory; violence simply changed shape.
“Translate that pattern into a post-Maduro Venezuela run in practice by US-backed figures, and you can sketch the basic dynamic. There will be bombings of police stations and government offices, high-profile assassinations, and attacks on oil infrastructure. Kidnapping Americans or US contractors will become a lucrative tactic. Armed groups will drift across the Colombian and Brazilian borders and into the jungle or mountains when pressure grows.”
There you got it!! Expect more refugees!!

…conspiracy?
It’s been quite a shock to most of us that Mad Maduro went out not with the bang he promised but with a whimper. According to a Miami Herald story, this is due to a betrayal from inside Maduro’s circle – by VP Delcy Rodriguez: “Ms Rodríguez, who now rules Venezuela with the approval of Mr Trump, had reached out to Washington to present a “more acceptable” alternative to the Maduro regime. Details of the meeting are now fuelling suspicions of an inside job to remove Maduro from power and leave a president in power who can manage a transition without dismantling the State completely and causing turmoil and riots.
The article quotes Santos, a former Colombian Vice President and later ambassador to the US, who asserted: “I’m absolutely certain Delcy Rodríguez handed him over. All the information we have, you start to put it together and say, ‘Oh, this was an operation in which they didn’t remove him, they handed him over.”
Who can you trust?!!

…pragmatism?
Newly sworn-in President (ag) Delcy Rodriguez immediately announced: “We invite the US Government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence.”
If you can’t beat ‘em…