US Republican Senator Calls for Coup in Venezuela

As Venezuelans get ready to vote in April’s presidential election, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio claimed via Twitter the world would support Venezuela’s military if they decided to orchestrate a coup against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who is up for re-election.

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The Republican lawmaker from Florida reiterated the need to "protect the people & restore democracy by removing a dictator" by posting a series of quotes by Latin American liberator Simon Bolivar in Spanish. Among them, one claimed "it is always noble to conspire against tyranny," and another reads "when tyranny is the law, rebellion is a right."

Simon Bolivar is a central figure that inspired former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to restore the Republic and launch the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), an alternative form of regional integration for Latin America and the Caribbean, created in 2009 to counter growing influence by the United States and imposition of a free trade agenda.

Rubio's comments come after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also addressed Venezuela's military saying "in the history of Venezuela and South American countries, it is often times that the military is the agent of change when things are so bad, and the leadership can no longer serve the people." Tillerson also threatened an oil embargo on the Bolivarian nation that is already suffering due to U.S. sponsored economic and financial sanctions.

On Thursday the U.S. Department of State made a public statement yesterday calling Venezuela's elections an attempt to "dismantle" democracy. 

Venezuela's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza condemned the United States stating they were "pressuring subordinates, forcing them to disavow the achievements reached in negotiations in the Dominican Republic... with the goal of expanding its coercive collective sanctions that have caused so much pain to the people of Venezuela" referring to the agreement that the members of the Opposition failed to sign.