Pompeo names US neocon Elliott Abrams to head up policy toward Venezuela
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has appointed Elliott Abrams, a hawkish neoconservative, to handle US policy toward Venezuela.
“Elliott will be a true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country,” Pompeo said on Friday in announcing Abrams’ appointment.
The top US diplomat said Abrams would accompany him to the United Nations on Saturday for a Security Council meeting on Venezuela where the US plans to pressure other countries to support Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the country’s interim president.
Venezuela is convulsed by political crisis. On Wednesday, Guaido declared himself the “interim president” of the country, rejecting the presidency of Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn earlier after winning elections boycotted by the opposition.
On Friday, former US Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul denounced Washington’s backing for the botched coup in Venezuela, calling it ‘hypocrisy’ and urging the US government to learn lessons from the so-called war on terror.
Abrams, appearing with Pompeo at a briefing for reporters, described the situation in Venezuela as “deep, difficult and dangerous.”
Abrams, a Jewish neoconservative who has long advocated an interventionist US role in the world, has served in the administrations of former US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Among his positions was a Middle East expert on the National Security Council and later as a global democracy strategy adviser. He also served as Reagan's assistant secretary of state.
Abrams is known in Latin American circles, especially for his attempt to whitewash a massacre of a thousand men, women and children by US-funded death squads in El Salvador during the Reagan administration.
In December 1981, nearly 1,000 men, women and children in the Salvadoran village of El Mozote were massacred by US-trained and -equipped military units.
Abrams later told a Senate committee that the reports of hundreds of deaths “were not credible.”
He was also convicted in 1991 on two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra affair, but later was pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.
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