Credit:  COHA / The four Embassy defenders  in front of the federal court in Washington DC Feb. 14, 2020:  David Paul, Margaret Flowers, Adrienne Pine, and Kevin Zeese

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC TIMES

An activist group that supports embattled Venezuela President Nicholas Maduro took over the Venezuela Embassy in Washington D.C. last April 2019. The group, which calls themselves the Code Pink, literally moved into the diplomatic compound in the posh Georgetown section of the nation’ capital and occupied it for weeks. The activists said they were living there in order to “protect”  the embassy from takeover by representatives of  “interim president” Juan Guaidó, who they contend is Trump’s puppet mounting a coup against the Maduro government.  Finally, after a month of an intense standoff,  police made their move , arresting and evicting the activists living inside the embassy.   U.S. Secret Service police  officers assisted agents from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service executed arrest warrants against people inside the embassy. Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police had set up  barricades on the public city sidewalk outside the embassy.  Federal charge of “interfering with certain protective functions”  were levied against four members of the Embassy Protection Collective, Adrienne Pine, David Paul, Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers.  Their defenders argued that police police raided the Venezuelan Embassy in violation of the Vienna Convention, which requires host countries to protect embassies and restricts them from entering without permission from the sovereign government.

Federal Charges Against Pro-Maduro Activists Dropped   

The federal charge of “interfering with certain protective functions” levied against four members of the Embassy Protection Collective was formally dropped earlier this month in a hearing before Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell in US District Court.   After a jury refused to convict them in February, resulting in a mistrial, the prosecutors offered to drop the federal charge and substitute a minor local misdemeanor charge of causing a disturbance.  Judge Howell sentenced the Embassy Protection Collective to no jail time.  The protectors were facing a potential year in jail and $100,000 fine each. They are now on six months of probation.

Civil Rights Leader Jesse Jackson Delivers Food To Pro-Maduro Activists Holed Up In Venezuela Embassy DC

Civil Rights icon  Rev. Jesse Jackson made a dramatic delivery of  food and water  to activists during their occupation of the Venezuela embassy in the Georgetown section of Washington D.C.   Jackson arrived at the besieged diplomatic compound to show support for the Embassy Protection Collective that were peacefully living in the embassy to protect it from being illegally taken over by the opposition.   

©Diplomatic Times /  Anti-war activists hung banner “Stop The Coup” from roof of  Venezuela Embassy in Washington D.C.

©Diplomatic Times  /  DC-MP  K-9 Unit outside Venezuela Embassy 

Protectors of the Venezuelan Embassy declare victory after federal charges are dropped  

Credit:  COHA / The four Embassy defenders and supporters in front of the federal court in Washington DC February, 14, 2020

After several months of proceedings that produced a mistrial in February 2020, the four activists expressed in a public statement after Federal charges were dropped:

“Today’s sentence marks yet another victory in the effort to protect the Venezuelan Embassy. The Embassy Protection Collective broke through the blockade and got supplies to the people inside; the people inside prevented the coup supporters from staying in the embassy; the embassy was not turned over to Guaidó—it remains empty today—and now the federal charges have been dropped.”

©Diplomatic Times / Activists occupy Venezuelan embassy in DC prior to police entry of diplomatic compound and their arrest and removal. 

Photo by Gary Raynaldo /  ©Diplomatic Times / Police outside Venezuela Embassy in Washington D.C. before the remaining activists (in the windows)  were arrested and evicted from the diplomatic compound after weeks of occupying the building to protest the “U.S. backed-coup” against President Nicolas Maduro May 15, 2019.

Last February, Trump administration prosecutors were unable to convince the jury that retired nurse practitioner David Paul, lawyer Kevin Zeese, pediatrician Margaret Flowers and academic Dr. Adrienne Pine, broke any law during their stay at the Venezuelan Embassy while protecting it by request of the legitimate Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro.

“The United States continues to threaten the Venezuelan people using tactics illegal under international law. In recent months, the economic war has been heightened and the President and other members of the Venezuelan government are facing bogus drug trafficking charges by the US Department of Justice. According to the DEA, Venezuela is a minor transhipment point for drugs while countries allied with the United States like Colombia and Honduras are major drug trafficking states. The US has put a bounty on Venezuelan officials, the US Navy is surrounding Venezuela’s coast and US soldiers have been sent to the Venezuelan border within Colombia and US-backed mercenaries have tried to enter Venezuela to kidnap or assassinate the President. None of this has deterred the Venezuelan people from defending their sovereignty and the revolutionary Bolivarian process.”

-Embassy Protectors, Popular Resistance