Juan Guaidó's Regime Change Lobby

Neumann told the Financial Times in June that "no one's given me anything. And I'm quite a chunk of my own money down. Not quite six figures, but nearly". Though her pockets are undoubtedly deep, her opaque financing and political track record raise serious questions about who else may be filling them, and in whose interests she might function as an official ambassador.

Guaidà ³'s Argentinian 'ambassador', Elisa Trotta Gamus, is also a human rights lawyer. According to her Linkedin page, Trotta has worked as a coordinator for USAID and the Ford Foundation in Venezuela.

In Argentina, Trotta heads an NGO named 'Alianza por Venezuela', apparently designed to help Venezuelan migrants in the country. But Trotta is also named within a list of beneficiaries of Argentinian president Mauricio Macri's PRO party within the ominous context of "strengthening Latin American democracies".

"Like any PRO foundation worth its salt", writes Argentinian news outlet El Disenso, "Alianza por Venezuela is opaque to the point of illegality... it is impossible to know the amount or origin of the funds it manages". Trotta also reportedly donated to Macri's 2017 election campaign to the tune of $15,000.

"Following social media", El Disenso continues, "we find a very sensible woman who, in between photos of yachts, travelling the world, long drinks and oyster plates, always finds a moment to worry about the misery of her brothers [in Venezuela], upon which she's cemented a prosperous career".

As the Grayzone reported in June, Carlos Vecchio has led the regime change charge in the US for some years. He was awarded for his efforts on 14 May, when regime change enthusiast and Florida senator Rick Scott presented Vecchio with the International Republican Institute's (IRI) Freedom Award. Keeping with fashion, the IRI is another US-government funded regime change factory with longstanding links with Venezuela; its Freedom Award is sponsored by the NED and ExxonMobil.

Julio Borges is Guaidà ³'s Lima group 'ambassador'. Borges is one of the co-founders of the Primero Justicia party, which was largely built on IRI and NED funds. Guaidà ³'s envoy to Peru, Carlos Scull Raygada, was also a significant Primero Justicia operative in the Sucre mayorship, Caracas, in 2014. During this time, Scull was also linked to NED funding.

A significant number of Guaidà ³'s international envoys supposedly responsible for behaving diplomatically are linked to past regime change efforts in Venezuela, including plots to assassinate high-level government officials.

Guaidà ³'s 'ambassador' to France, Isadora Zubillaga, is one of the founding members of VP and widely seen as the right-hand woman of Leopoldo Lopez. Like Primero Justicia, VP was bankrolled by the NED from its earliest days.

In a video diffused in 2016 by the Venezuelan socialist party's chairman, Diosdado Cabello, Zubillaga is accused of leaving Venezuela more than 30 times to launder money through construction sites for VP. Cabello also claims that Zubillaga organised the "Mexican party" a 2010 meeting in Mexico City, where high-end VP officials laid out a coup plot against Cha'vez.

Guaidà ³'s German 'ambassador', Otto Gebauer, manned Hugo Cha'vez's prison cell during a coup attempt in 2002. After the event, Gebauer wrote a book entitled "I saw him Cry", claiming the president tearfully requested to be released and sent to Cuba. Gebauer "is an incendiary figure in Venezuela", writes German-based news outlet DW: "You don't have to oppose Guaidà ³ to wonder whether he might not have been able to come up with a more diplomatic figure". Borges also played a significant role in the 2002 coup, and in various subsequent destabilisation efforts.

Humberto Calderà ³n Berti is Guaidà ³'s 'ambassador' to Colombia. In July, Venezuelan-based news outlet Mision Verdad reported that Calderon was personally contacted by a marksman involved in an alleged plot to assassinate president Nicolas Maduro and various high-ranking Venezuelan officials.

Numerous members of Guaidà ³'s diplomatic team, meanwhile, are close allies of Marà a Corina Machado, who has been accused of inciting violent street protests and discussing coup plots against the Venezuelan government with US state department officials. Brazilian 'ambassador' Teresa Belandria served as international coordinator for Machado's Vente Venezuela party. Canadian 'ambassador' Orlando Viera-Blanco is an apparent supporter of Machado. Neumann has called her a "friend", and celebrated voting in the 2017 elections with Machado's cousin. Suju has made similar remarks.

With these combined cases, we see not the image of a diplomatic team but of a regime change lobby which is historically inclined to launch violent destabilisation campaigns. At some level, their propensity to play a zero-sum regime change game must cast aspersions on the level of good-will present around the negotiating table in Barbados.

Guaidà ³'s envoys also seem to have a quasi-aristocratic relationship to power. Many are descendants of the pre-Cha'vez political establishment or the old Venezuelan oligarchy, and their stubbornness to concede power is revealing.

Indeed, Carlos Vecchio (US), son of former COPEI official Rafael Vecchio, once claimed unironically: "My father was a politician, so it must be in my blood". He would later claim: "I felt that it was my responsibility to go into politics after watching my father's efforts".

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