CIA launches media campaign to ignite protests against Venezuela’s Maduro

The United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is backing Washington’s decision to recognize Venezuela's opposition leader Juan Guaido as president by manipulating the public opinion against democratically-elected President Nicolas Maduro and the legitimate government over social media platforms.

U.S. President Donald Trump formally recognized Guaido shortly after his announcement and praised his plan to hold elections. That was followed by similar statements from Canada and a slew of right-leaning Latin American governments, including Venezuela's neighbors Brazil and Colombia.

Millions of posts designed to instigate Venezuelans against the country's legitimate president, Nicolas Maduro, were shared in a very short time to kindle a social unrest against Maduro.

Assoc. Prof. Dr Levent Eraslan unveiled the striking details of the U.S’s perception and deception strategies in an exclusively interview to Yeni Şafak daily.

Stressing the U.S. national intelligence’s strategy report in 2019 that consists Pentagon’s intervention in Venezuelan politics, Eraslan said, "The role of ‘machine learning’ and providing data to decision makers by determining political instabilities through social media were emphasized in the report.”

Noting that thousands of tweets that have been shared from different accounts in the last two days, “People are being called to take streets to overthrow the elected president. The efforts to trigger rebellion and push this process into a bloody situation through social media networks such as Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook can be observed,” he concluded.

Lower parliamentary house speaker Vyacheslav Volodin called the steps to remove Maduro illegal, Interfax news agency reported on Thursday. A second lawmaker, Franz Klinzevich, said Moscow could wind up its military cooperation with Venezuela if Maduro was ousted.

In Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said recognizing a leader other than Maduro might cause "chaos".

In Paris, a presidency official said France was consulting with its European partners about the situation.