Corporate Coup

Préface

• Collaborate with author on extensive social media campaign to promote the book.
• Pitch excerpts and reviews to wide array of publications including Al Jazeera, Jacobin, The Intercept, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Bookforum, The Independent, Tribune, Current Affairs, The Progressive, Morning Star, Monthly Review, and more.
• Pitch television, radio, and podcast interviews to shows including Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera’s UpFront, The Dig, Intercepted, Useful Idiots, Bad Faith, Breaking Points, Rising, Citations Needed, Pushback with Aaron Maté, Moderate Rebels, Empire Files, and more.





Auteur

Anya Parampil is a journalist for the independent newsite The Grayzone, based in Washington, DC. She has produced and reported several documentaries, including on-the-ground dispatches from the Korean peninsula, Palestine, Venezuela, and Honduras.

Texte du rabat

• In the room and on-the-ground coverage from Venezuela; multiple conversations and meetings with high level Venezuelan officials including President Nicolás Maduro
• Deep dive investigative reporting featuring testimony from members of Venezuela’s opposition who help expose the corporate plot to loot Venezuela’s wealth 
• Explanation of Venezuelan history and the evolution of the Chavista revolution, particularly the period since Hugo Chávez’s death in 2014
• Extensive analysis of US hybrid war tactics, including sanctions, and how countries beyond Venezuela are banding together in order to mitigate damaging effects of US policy, with specific analysis of the implications of a new multi-polar world order.






Résumé

Corporate Coup looks at the attempted overthrow of the elected government of Venezuela, an intervention which, despite open backing by the United States, failed dismally. 
 In January of 2019, the Trump Administration decided to recognize a previously little known opposition lawmaker named Juan Guaidó as President of Venezuela. The policy was unprecedented — while Washington’s history of coups in Latin America is well documented, never before had the United States taken the step of legally recognizing a new government before an actual change in leadership had taken place. Within months it became clear that the attempt at regime change had fallen flat: all Venezuelan territory, government ministries, and the country’s military remained under the control of President Nicolás Maduro. While US officials, such as Trump Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams boasted that roughly 54 countries followed Washington’s lead and recognized Guaidó’s authority, the vast majority of United Nations member states rejected the coup policy and maintained relations with Maduro’s government. Three years on from the coup attempt, Venezuela’s government is firmly in place and Guaidó is virtually nowhere to be seen. So what did this ham-fisted regime change effort truly achieve? 
 Parampil provides a narrative history of the Chavista revolution and offers character sketches of the figures who have come to lead it since Hugo Chávez’s death in 2014. She shows how Guaidó’s shadow regime consisted of individuals with deep connections to transnational corporations which sought to overturn the revolution and exploit Venezuela’s resources, revealing their plot to steal Citgo Petroleum, the country’s most valuable international asset.Corporate Coup exposes the hidden personalities and interests driving US policy on Venezuela, revealing that while the recognition of Guaidó failed at changing reality on the ground in Caracas, it succeeded in providing cover for the unprecedented looting of the country’s internationally-stored wealth. It is based on the extensive investigation and on-the-ground reporting Anya Parampil has conducted since the US coup attempt began, during which she cultivated relationships with top Venezuelan government officials as well as members of the country’s opposition who oppose Guaidó and US sanction policy. 
 This gripping story from Venezuela encapsulates the tenor of a US foreign policy that is happy to trample on democratic norms and illustrates how a new, multipolar world is rising in order to resist it.

Échantillon de lecture

From the Introduction: Project for the New American Century 
 Upon walking through the front doors of Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry, or Cancillería, in Caracas, one is greeted by a peculiar art installation which, at first glance, appears to be a large, fractured, black-trimmed window with a tail stretching behind it. As you gaze past the structure to see what is labeled the Sala de Salvador Allende, or “Salvador Allende Room,” located in the Cancillería lobby, the towering sculpture’s full image becomes clear. It is an artistic rendering of former Chilean President Salvador Allende’s glasses, left shattered on the floor of his office on September 11, 1973, after US-backed military forces stormed the Presidential Palace in Santiago and overthrew his government. Allende died from gunshot wounds, later ruled to be the result of suicide, amidst the putsch. 
 I first encountered the sculpture in February 2019, during what became the first of three extended reporting trips I made to Venezuela over the next two years. Days before my arrival, a little-known opposition lawmaker named Juan Guaidó had stood in the center of Caracas’ John Paul II Square and declared himself president of Venezuela, announcing a direct challenge to the authority of President Nicolás Maduro—and sparking an international political crisis that lingers to this day. 
 Up until that point, the entirety of Guaidó’s burgeoning career had been defined by his ascent within foreign-funded civic organizations in Venezuela. As we will learn, after studying at George Washington University in Washington DC, he joined the ranks of Voluntad Popular, a US-backed opposition party borne from foreign-sponsored student protests that rocked Venezuela throughout 2007. By 2016, Guaidó was representing his native Estado La Guaira in the country’s national legislature at the tender age of 32. 
 When he announced his self-declared presidency less than three years later, however, Caracas-based pollster Hinterlaces found that a whopping 81 percent of Venezuelans had no idea who Guaidó was. Even so, the novice politician managed to woo officials Washington. According to The Wall Street Journal, his confidence was inspired by a conversation with none other than US Vice President Mike Pence, who placed a call to Caracas on the eve of Guaidó’s makeshift swearing-in ceremony to “set in motion a plan that had been developed in secret over the preceding several weeks, accompanied by talks between US officials, allies, lawmakers and key Venezuelan opposition figures.” The scheme marked an unprecedented twist in US foreign policy: Washington had declared its regime change mission in Caracas “accomplished” before a physical transition in government had actually taken place—and it never would. Today, Guaidó’s name is primarily evoked as a punchline; synonymous with the most infamous US-backed coup that wasn’t. 
 To myself and my colleagues, the Venezuela dilemma presented a fascinating reporting opportunity—a chance to cover one of the Trump Administration’s most consequential foreign policy blunders while getting a firsthand look at Chavismo, a political movement that permanently altered the course of history on our …